The Test of Time : Members of Booker T. & the MG’s have had their share of hits that have endured since the ‘60s.

Besides having such instrumental hits of their own as “Green Onions,” “Hip Hug-Her” and “Boot-Leg,” Booker T. & the MG’s, who are playing at B.B. King’s Blues Club on Tuesday, were the house band at Stax Records in Memphis during the 1960s. As a rhythm section, they laid the foundation for Stax’s punchy Memphis soul sound.

The group and its individual members were involved as either musicians, producers or composers with many classic hit recordings of the period. These included “Respect” and “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding; “Hold On, I’m Comin’ ” and “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave; “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett and “Knock On Wood” by Eddie Floyd.

Originally hired as session players, the unit evolved into a band, which consisted of keyboardist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald (Duck) Dunn and drummer Al Jackson. MG stood for Memphis Group. The band was noteworthy not only for its music but also for being an integrated band in the South in the 1960s. Cropper and Dunn are white, and Jones is African American, as was Jackson, who died in 1975.

Jones says he didn’t realize at the time that he was helping create a music that would endure over time.

“I was enjoying what I was doing,” he says. But “even today when I get a check, it’s amazing (to me) that it’s still popular.”

Jones grew up in the neighborhood around the Stax Records building in Memphis. As a child, he saw the building change from a movie theater to a record store and recording studio. He started working at Stax Records in 1960 as a saxophonist when he was about 15 years old. He would ride his bike to recording sessions.

“The days were similar--they weren’t that different from the times I worked as a paperboy (in the same neighborhood),” he remembers. “It was only a better job. I made more money at Stax.”

Although the band never officially broke up, the members eventually stopped recording together. Jones moved to California in 1968, and soon after, Cropper set up his own recording label, while Jackson and Dunn continued to record for Stax.

Two years after Jackson was shot and killed, the band recorded an album with a replacement drummer for Asylum Records. Cropper and Dunn later worked with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the Blues Brothers Band covering some of the music they had helped to create a decade before. Jones recorded several solo albums during the 1970s and ‘80s, and produced a number of albums by other artists, including Bill Withers, Willie Nelson and Rita Coolidge.

Jones lived in West Hills in the San Fernando Valley from 1984 to 1993, before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.

The group reunited in 1989 to play a few dates over the next several years. Jones says the mature artists looked at the music they had created years before in a new light.

“The music took on a new life,” Jones says. “We found out there was some real work in the music that we played. The music stood up. It wasn’t hard to rejuvenate it.”

In 1992, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1994, the band released “That’s the Way It Should Be,” their first album in 17 years.

The album combined cover versions of songs by Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, U2 and others, with some original material that ranged from straight-ahead blues to funk to ballads. The group recorded the album with two kinds of tape machines: basic tracks were recorded on a 16-track analog unit to reproduce the old Stax sound, and over-dubs were done digitally.

The band’s current drummer is Steve Potts, a cousin of the MG’s original drummer Al Jackson. “He (Potts) understands what the band is about,” Jones says.

The band played to a packed audience at the House of Blues in West Hollywood last May. Jones says the show at B.B. King’s--where they will be appearing with Sam Moore, formerly of the duo Sam & Dave--is just a chance to play again for their Los Angeles fans.

“We’re just in town, and we got invited to play there,” Jones says. “They’ve been trying to get us there since they opened.”

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WHERE AND WHEN

Who: Booker T. & the MG’s and Sam Moore.

Location: B. B. King’s Blues Club at Universal CityWalk, 1000 Universal City Drive.

Hours: 7 and 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Price: $25 and $40.

Call: (818) 622-5464.