Former Booker T bassist Lewie Steinberg dies aged 82

Lewie Steinberg, far right, with Booker T And The MGs (Image credit: Stax Records)

Booker T And The MGs’ original bassist Lewie Steinberg has died aged 82, the Stax Museum has confirmed.

The late musician joined iconic blues label Stax Records in 1961 for bass duties with the studio’s session band, the Mar-Keys.

A year later, drummer Al Jackson Jr and organist Booker T Jones jammed a riff they had been playing in clubs prior to recording a jingle. Co-owner Jim Stewart recorded them and helped them write what would become Booker T And The MGs’ R&B chart-topping hit, Green Onions.

Steinberg appeared on the band’s 1962 debut full-length album, Green Onions and 1965 follow-up Soul Dressing. He was eventually replaced by Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn – though he was inducted alongside his former bandmates in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2002.

Jones and Cropper are the only men still alive from Booker T And the MGs. Jackson was murdered in 1975 and Dunn died while on the road in Japan in 2012.

Vinyl Treasures: Booker T. & The M.G.'s - Green Onions

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.