Booker T. & the MGs’ version of “Jingle Bells” originally appeared on their holiday album In the Christmas Spirit, a stocking stuffed full of their trademark funky instrumental takes on traditional and contemporary Christmas music, released by Stax in 1966.

There’s not too much happening rhythmically in this tune, as bassist Duck Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and guitarist Steve Cropper (strumming open chords that almost sound country, like a banjo) simply keep driving the beat and jingling them bells resolutely onward. One sweet hairpin turn opens up the middle section for a Cropper solo that’s typically tight, tangy and twangy, but Booker T. plays the familiar, sing-along verses and chorus relatively straight up.

You finish this entire ride in little more than 2:30; even if the sonic qualities of Jones’ keyboard sound, to put it kindly, a little out of date, this proves more than enough time for the eternally efficient MGs rhythm machine to lay down a groove on you.

Booker T. & the MGs’ ride along “Jingle Bells” remains available on Volume I of The Complete Stax-Volt Singles.

The Staples Singers released “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” around the same time as Hayes’ holiday single.

“Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” was a new holiday tune written by longtime Stax publicist, all-around office supporter, and songwriter Deanie Parker. Al Bell was almost immediately enthusiastic about it, and recorded it with The Staples Singers at Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. “When I heard that song,” Bell later recalled, “I said, ‘Oh, wow.’ I mean, what a question to raise, ‘Who took the merry out of Christmas?’ That stopped it right there. The Staples fell into it right off the bat, it was a natural for them.”

But Bell, like many others, seems to have, at least initially, missed the point. Led by Pops’ and Mavis’ hearty voices, “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” combines uptempo gospel and blues and seems to punch just a bit tougher than even the Staples’ most rousing music.

They particularly scorch this second verse: “Who took the merry out of Christmas / People all over the world forgot about merry / Too busy buying toys / Learning about Santa’s joys / Making believe that he’s just another baby boy…”

It seems to punch a bit tougher because it’s fighting against something: Fighting not against folks who seem to insist on taking all the happiness (”merry-ness”) out of Christmas, bit against folks who seem to insist on taking Mary, the phonetic sound-alike to “merry” and the mother of the baby Jesus, the Christ child, out of Christmas.

From this perspective, “Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas” becomes Parker’s hymn to the seemingly endless stream of generations that seem to be “Searching for light, but never seems to find the right star.”

In the course of 1970, in the midst of his amazing run from the Hot Buttered Soul to Shaft albums, Isaac Hayes somehow found time to write and record a new Christmas song, “The Mistletoe and Me,” which Stax released as part of a small group of holiday-themed singles late that year.

“The Mistletoe and Me” presents the smoothest (even if the “schmaltzy-est”) cocktail jazz piano and vocals that Hayes ever recorded, at least for Stax. It’s a great romantic ballad in the Nat “King” Cole or Charles Brown “gentlemanly jazz” tradition, with almost no rhythm and little blues.

Ike even wrote in allusions to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Jingle Bells,” bringing it all down in his inimitable ballad style, long and slow and elegant and deep, his vocal exploring every dark, profound corner and shadow in his music. Swirling in and out like eggnog rum, Hayes’ piano and trademark Stax strings and horns make this “Mistletoe” more sweet and potent. It’s a thoughtful pause upon the promise offered by one special starlit night, you, the mistletoe and me.

With a Little Help From My Friends was the only album that Steve Cropper recorded for Stax as his own man, an entirely instrumental solo album affair recorded in 1969 and released on the Volt subsidiary, which mainly featured instrumentals, in ‘71. Precious little information about these sessions seems ever published or currently available, in particular the identities of Cropper’s accompanists, although several drum breakdowns sure sound like they were thumped out by that funky Mr. Al Jackson, Jr.

With a Little Help From My Friends is a typically understated display of Cropper’s talent; not only does his guitar command center stage, he wrote or co-wrote five of these eleven tunes. He also steps out to front “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which he first performed as part of the MGs’ backup for Albert King’s hit single version, the blues classic “I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water” and the Beatles’ title track.

Cropper shreds “Land of 1,000 Dances” with a guitar attack more raw and hot than usual, blending Wes Montgomery jazz cool and Chet Atkins country twang into a rockin’ and rollin’ attack on this R&B classic. His tune “99 1/2″ is the kind of psychedelic fuzz-toned, hard blues-based rock and roll that Jorma Kaukonen and Hot Tuna have kept in play for decades, a mountain of steaming hot jam like a mystical Booker T. & the MGs / Allman Brothers summit. His guitar also rips through the subsequent “Drink Muddy Water” like a threshing mower.

“Boo-Ga-Loo Down Broadway” back to back with “Funky Broadway” are just the kind of funky grooves that the MGs would have dug deeply into and crystallize together to represent the intrinsic soul and funk of Cropper’s guitar sound and style.

The final cut, “Rattlesnake” captures a great image for this timeless Cropper sound: Sleek, muscular, deceptively and fatally quick, with plenty of fangs.