Booker T. Jones
Beale Street Music Festival
Orion Blues Tent
Tom Lee Park
Memphis, TN
May 7, 2017

** 16 BIT **

Source: Sonic Studios DSM-6P w/3-way lo-cut filter (@ 80hz, middle setting) > Tascam DR-2d @ 16 bit/44.1 kHz
Mastering Part 1: .WAV > Denon 790R > Kenwood A-522 amplifier > Kenwood GE-622 Equalizer > .WAV @ 16 bit/44.1 kHz
Mastering Part 2: EQ'd .WAV > Sound Forge Pro 11.0 (Build 299) [iZotope Mastering Suite (declick); Sony Wave Hammer plugin (lower crowd screams); minor edits, normalize, & fades] > CDWav (tracking) > Trader's Little Helper (level 5) > FLAC > TagScanner 6.0.18 (tagging)
Location: Back row, left side
Recorded by: Steve "ballsdeep" Hagar
Mastered by: Steve Hagar (Part 1) and Dennis Orr (Part 2)

Setlist:
01 Intro > Hang 'Em High
02 Band Intros
03 "Unknown Instrumental"
04 Soul Dressing
05 Chat
06 Born Under A Bad Sign
07 Green Onions
08 Mannish Boy
09 Chat
10 Hey Joe
11 Chat
12 Purple Rain
13 Hip Hug-Her
14 Summertime
15 Soul Limbo
16 Everything Is Everything

Booker T. Jones - vocals & keyboards
Tim Jones - guitar
Melvin Brannon, Jr. (AKA M-Cat Spoony) - bass
Darian Gray - drums

Show Notes:
I have never had luck taping at the Blues Tent at Beale. I got an ok-but-muddy Gary Clark Jr. '12 set, Ana Popovic wasn't much better in '16, and then there was the always-classy Booker T. doing some jams and whatnot this year. I figured it'd be better than Bush after Midnight Oil, though it involved walking from one end of the park to the other (probably about a mile each way). I have always thought about taping from closer, but that would involve being shoulder to shoulder with numerous "geese" (talkers), and that didn't sound fun

Being at Beale primarily for Soundgarden, I knew that this would be an incomplete recording, due to set time scheduling (though with Soundgarden coming on a bit late, I might have been able to catch 10 more minutes of Booker T.'s set). I figured "some was better than none". and bless Booker's heart, he was kind and got "Green Onions" out of the way by the 30 minute mark.

This one has it all...creaky chairs and chair-legs-scraping-on-asphalt, talkers, stepped-on cans and bottles, steady bleed-thru (bass, and it's fairly bad between Booker T. songs, along with the songs themselves about 5 minutes in) from Jill Scott playing on the stage behind the tent...and of course it's missing most likely the last 3 songs...but behind all of that is a ready-steady 75 minute set of classic blues mixed in with covers...and of course the aformentioned "Green Onions".

All that said, I picked the very back row on the left side; it only had about 5 of the original 20 chairs from the row remaining, so I quickly picked them up and moved them 20 feet away (to mitigate the scraping sounds), sat down with the missus, and just enjoyed being able to sit (only act out of the 4 seen) and soak up a minor legend. Quite a varied setlist, as I was walking out, I glimpsed at the tiny soundboard at the back of the tent and there was a setlist taped to it....too beat and 'shy' to ask the guy to take a pic (he looked frazzled/burnt out), I did see 2 songs under a line, and walked out before the encore, so it's safe to say I missed the finale, and 2 encore songs, *if* that was Booker T.'s setlist...but I'm assuming it was.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: thank Dennis for his service. Without him, you'd not be hearing this stuff, as I don't have the skillset or the time to share this stuff via the innerwebs (sic). Eventually will learn, but it's prolly a couple years down the road.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me.

---ballsdeep OUT!!!!!