Booker T. & The M.G.s have provided the Soul Show’s theme since 2009 or 2010, shortly after I assumed the solo host role. There were a couple of reasons why it happened.
I was privately told a WYEP manager that station listenership always dropped off after the preceding program, The Saturday Mix, which is an extension of the weekday AAA (Adult Album Alternative) standard programming. This is totally understandable given the listener demographic, but I started brainstorming how to improve the situation without compromising The Soul Show’s mission.
Separately, WYEP planned a fundraiser at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and it featured a documentary on Stax Records. It just so happened that The Soul Show’s main host, Stef Chatman, was off a week or two prior, and I started the show with Stax act Booker T. just to get folks warmed up for the event. A friend and longtime station listener commented that the track was great. I held the thought.
Ultimately, I figured that starting the show with a movie theme would subliminally grab AAA listeners before turning the dial away at 2pm. Without having access to listener data as a WYEP volunteer, it was hard to know if the plan worked, but I do know that TSS sustained its membership campaign successes after the popular Chatman era.
Sidenote: When launching the separate, syndicated edition of TSS, I chose to use The Meters rendition of the same song. After the cancellation of the original show on WYEP, the syndicated edition became the only weekly broadcast, and the BTMGs song took over nationwide.