Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. (born November 12, 1944) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.’s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. Booker T. Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 12, 1944. He was named after his father, Booker T. Jones, Sr., who was named in honor of Booker T. Washington, the educator. Booker T. Jones, Sr. was a science teacher at the school, providing the family with a relatively stable, lower middle-class lifestyle.

Jones was musically a child prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, double bass, and piano at school and organ at church. Jones attended Booker T. Washington High School, the alma mater of Rufus Thomas, and contributed with future stars like Isaac Hayes‘s writing partner David Porter, saxophonist Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns, soul singer/songwriter William Bell, and Earth, Wind & Fire‘s singer/songwriter Maurice White.