Booker T. & the M.G.s found success on their own with the guileless grooves of this infectious improvizational instrumental. Keyboardist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Lewis Steinberg, and drummer Al Jackson, Jr. were the house band at Stax Records. During downtime with one of the many Stax artists for which they provided backup, the band was able to record their own material.
Jones recalls: "That happened as something of an accident. We used the time to record a Blues which we called 'Behave Yourself', and I played it on a Hammond M3 organ. Jim Stewart, the owner, was the engineer and he really liked it and wanted to put it out as a record. We all agreed on that and Jim told us that we needed something to record as a B-side, since we couldn't have a one-sided record. One of the tunes I had been playing on piano we tried on the Hammond organ so that the record would have organ on both sides and that turned out to be 'Green Onions.'"
Written and produced by Jones, Cropper, Steinberg, and Jackson, the single was released with 'Behave Yourself' as the A-side; but radio DJ's preferred the groovier B-side to the down-tempo blues number. It became a local sensation when a Memphis DJ played it four times in a row. The song went to number three on the pop chart and spent four non-consecutive weeks at the top of the R&B chart in September and October of 1962. Seventeen years later it entered the UK charts, eventually peaking at number seven. It has been covered by many artists and featured in countless films. Jones, who was seventeen at the time it was recorded, explained the title: "Because that is the nastiest thing I can think of and it's something you throw away."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bpS-cOBK6Q
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