I got into Otis Redding just about the time he left this earth. Bummer. It was the first experience I had with black music that was as profound and moving as the one I had been having with Beatles, Stones, Dylan and the rest of that gang who had all been pointing in that direction. I had, of course, loved Motown and many black hits, but I was still not quite a true believer. Otis converted me.

A good friend gave me "The Dictionary of Soul" and forced me to sit and listen to it. It didn't take long to understand why my beloved British stars were so enamored of the big sound emanating from Memphis. Behind, under and around the obvious charms of Redding's sweet and uniquely funky voice something insistent and cool was happening. That thing was the modest, sturdy and endlessly tasteful playing of the Stax house band, Booker T and the MGs, along with the Memphis Horns.

In the last month, saxophonist Andrew Love, one half of the Memphis Horns, died, and today, more bad news – Duck Dunn, the bass player for that stellar band, passed away in his sleep after a gig in Tokyo.

Of the original four MGs, only Steve Cropper and Booker T. survive. In 1975, their drummer Al Jackson, Jr. was shot four times in the chest, putting an end to one of the finest rhythm sections to ever come out of the south. The whole band seemed to be designed for a blindfold test, so distinctive was their sound you knew it was them before the end of the first bar.

If I could describe what it was they did, we wouldn't need music. The closest I can come to expressing it is to say they were unexcitable in a very exciting way. They let the game come to them in a relaxed and confident way – they stayed cool and never, ever rushed. They were stingy with notes where other groups were spendthrifts. The effect they created was one of extreme tension and discipline, something that cried out for release and, as we know, that was easily delivered by the great stable of singers at Stax.

It's one thing to say that soul is a dying art and another thing altogether to have to watch the artists leave this earth in a slow sad procession. The time when when conditions were just right for the glory that was Stax was way too short. Though a lot of young bands seem to have caught that excitement lately, there was only one Booker T & The MGs and one Otis Redding.

And Duck, your bass parts will rattle my speakers and boggle my mind with their simplicity and beauty for a long time. Here's hoping that somewhere you are hooking up with your old bandmate and laying down one funky, celestial groove.