The following Original Interview Posted by Robin Murray on Tuesday, 25/10/2011 . . .
Steve Cropper (born Steven Lee Cropper, October 21, 1941, Dora, Missouri), also known as Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and has backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor, also acting as producer on many of these records. He later gained fame as a member of The Blues Brothers band. Rolling Stone lists him 36th on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Mojo ranks Cropper as the second-best guitarist ever.
Born and raised in the South, the guitarist is now in semi-retirement. Doing the occasional session as he sees fit, Cropper makes time for plenty of charity work and opportunities to improve his golfing handicap. Yet in a strange sort of way, his life has come full circle with his home in Nashville just a few miles from where he cut one of his first sessions. “I got a little into the pop situation and had a friend who wanted to record, a buddy of mine, a duet” he recalls. “We called ourselves Steve & Dante, but the good news is it didn’t make it! If it had of made it then it would’ve changed my whole life. But I was in Nashville, one of the greatest engineers in the world Billy Sherill was the engineer that day and they had ace session musicians at the time playing on this thing. I got to see recording in Nashville which was different than the way we did it in Memphis so it was a good education for me.”
Every inch the Southern gentleman, Steve Cropper takes time to answer each question thoroughly despite a demanding press day. His education in Nashville was part of a musical upbringing that saw him work with some of the greats in soul and R&B. An integral part of the Memphis based Stax label, the guitarist co-wrote songs that form part of the tapestry of day to day life. Yet the songwriter took his inspirations from far beyond the R&B scene, even playing on the odd country session down in Nashville. “I rolled up one time and played a session at the RCA Studio B, which is where Chet Atkins did a lot of his stuff” he explains. “I actually played on a session, drove up for it one time. I got to see that room and how they recorded. They didn’t isolate, they had everything very loud because they didn’t want to have the delay, that ghost sounding thing. We did ours a little different because we were mono, so when we mastered it you could hear the delay which meant that everybody was behind the vocals and more spread out. Basically the Stax stuff, the early Stax stuff was cut entirely in Mono. There was no editing, we did some overdubs where you might tag on an intro or a fade out but that was about the only leverage we had to change anything we had to go with the take we did.”
Despite his work bringing untold joy to millions across the globe, Steve Cropper’s life was interrupted by the deaths of two close friends. First Otis Redding was tragically taken away, and then the demise of John Belushi ends The Blues Brothers project just when it seemed that Cropper’s work would be recognized all over again. “After Belushi passed away that just deflated my balloon, I thought “here we go again. Again and again. You get something doing that’s really fantastic and then BOOM! Someone lets the air out of the tires.” I just felt that way and so I sort of semi-retired. I didn’t take a lot of sessions, I refused a lot of work.”
However out of his distress Steve Cropper was to meet someone who would change his life. Introduced by a friend, the guitarist married his current wife 23 years ago. “She was a model and singer at the time and wanted to come to Nashville to get in the business, although it never really did happen for her” he remembers. “We’ve got two great children, a great life and I fly off tomorrow morning to meet them for golf and a bit of relaxation.”
Life is led at a slower pace than his Stax heyday, but Steve Cropper is still capable of commanding the stage. Brought in to work with the Silver Cornet Band, the guitarist is in town to direct Jack Daniel’s birthday show. Sharing the stage with K Flay, Warpaint and Plan B the musician is able to inject an energy, a directness which comes straight from the heart. “I don’t do sound checks and rehearsals with the same energy that I do shows” he states. “I play with a different energy – I don’t think I play any different with my hands but I play with a different attitude and a different thought when I have an audience in front of me. Just playing for sound guys or people standing around a room – not to be rude or anything – I can’t put the same energy into a sound check as I would for a live show.”
Admitting to making a few mistakes during rehearsals, Steve Cropper explains that during songwriting these mistakes and ad libs would become part of the emerging song. “The intro to ‘Knock On Wood’ – Eddie Floyd was sitting waiting on me to come up with an intro. I just couldn’t think of one. Man, we had the song finished but we just had to have an intro!” he laughs. “I beat myself to death but I couldn’t come up with anything. I don’t know what fell out of the ceiling but I thought “I wonder what ‘Midnight Hour’ would sound like backwards?” If I played the same changes the other way up? That’s the intro to ‘Knock On Wood’.”
“The intro to ‘Soul Man’ is a pretty famous lick” he continues. “Isaac Hayes came running in the back when I was logging tapes and asked to borrow me for a minute. “Now, I know Dave and I have wrote a hit today” – because we were going to cut Sam & Dave –“I know we wrote a hit but I can’t think of an intro. Can you get your guitar and help me come up with an intro for it?” So I get my guitar, plug it up and sit by the piano as he plays a bit of the song. I said “just play me some changes.” He played the changes, I started doing the hammer licks and that’s the intro to ‘Soul Man’. Its things like that, which happened accidentally on purpose. So accidents do happen!”
Steve Cropper spoke to ClashMusic as part of Mr. Jack's Birthday @ The Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.
And so I close one more post about another historic bluesman, a creative American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist; Steve Cropper, “Soul Man” (born on October 21, 1941 ).
When he was nine years old, Cropper moved with his family to Memphis, Tennessee.
At the age of ten, he strummed his brother-in-law's Gibson guitar for the first time. Cropper received his first guitar by mail order at 14 and started playing with local musicians. His guitar heroes at the time included Lowman Pauling of the "5" Royales, as well as Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Reed, and the guitarist of the Bill Doggett band, Billy Butler.
Cropper and guitarist Charlie Freeman formed the Royal Spades, who eventually became the Mar-Keys. The name referred to the marquee outside Stax studios, known as Satellite Records at the time. Eventually the Mar-Keys began playing on sessions and had a hit single of their own with "Last Night" in 1961.
Steve Cropper in concert (1990)
Besides being impressed with the young guitarist's playing, Stax Records president Jim Stewart saw professionalism and maturity beyond Cropper's years. When American Records founder Chips Moman left Stax, Cropper became the company's A&R man. He became a founding member of the Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.'s, along with Hammond organ player Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn and drummer Al Jackson Jr.. As a house guitarist he played on many recordings such as "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay," co-written with and performed by Otis Redding, and Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" on which he was mentioned by name. When Cropper played on the song's remake by The Blues Brothers, lead singer John Belushi again mentioned Cropper.
At this time Cropper's fame was not limited to the United States. The Beatles favoured Cropper's playing, and his production on Otis Redding records. John Lennon and Paul McCartney made tentative plans to record in Memphis, and to work with the guitarist. However Brian Epstein cancelled the sessions, citing security problems. Regarding this period, Rob Bowman, in his book Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story Of Stax Records, quoted Booker T. Jones as saying:
“We were writing sounds too, especially Steve. He's very sound-conscious, and he gets a lot of sounds out of a Telecaster without changing any settings —just by using his fingers, his picks, and his amps”
Along with influential work with Booker T & The MG's, Cropper co-wrote "Knock On Wood" with Eddie Floyd, "In the Midnight Hour" with Wilson Pickett and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" with Otis Redding. In 1969, Cropper released his first solo album, With a Little Help From My Friends.
Steve Cropper at the Hamar Music Festival, 2007
When Cropper left Stax in the fall of 1970, the label lost one of its most successful producers and songwriters. Cropper then set up TMI Studios with Jerry Williams and former Mar-Key Ronnie Stoots. There he played guitar and produced various musicians including Tower Of Power, Rod Stewart, John Prine, José Feliciano, The Jeff Beck Group, Ringo Starr and John Lennon. It's little-known that Cropper also played guitar on the cover of The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" that appears on fellow Memphians Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers.
By 1975, Cropper had moved to Los Angeles and along with Jackson and Dunn, reformed Booker T. & the M.G's. Jackson, whom Cropper called "the greatest drummer to ever walk the earth," was murdered in his Memphis home before the group could make their comeback. In 1978, and Dunn became members of Levon Helm's RCO All-Stars, and then went on to figure prominently in The Blues Brothers Band with the drummer Willie Hall. This led to two albums and two movie soundtracks. Cropper also re-recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" (1979) for Sammy Hagar. Cropper lived in Los Angeles for the next thirteen years before moving to Nashville and reuniting with The Blues Brothers Band in 1988.
In 1992, Booker T. & the M.G.'s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Cropper appeared with a new line-up of the group for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary concert, on October 1992 at Madison Square Garden, performing songs by and backing Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Chrissie Hynde, Sinéad O'Connor, Stevie Wonder and Neil Young. The concert was recorded and later released as The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993). Young later recruited this line up of Booker T. and the M.G's, to tour with him and record as his studio band.
In 1996, Cropper was named "the greatest living guitar player" by Britain's Mojo magazine. When asked what he thought of Cropper, the guitarist Keith Richards said, "Perfect, man." In February 1998, Cropper released Play It, Steve! which included some of soul music's most enduring songs. The album title came from the "shout" of the title phrase by Moore on Sam & Dave's "Soul Man," and later by John Belushi (with The Blues Brothers).
In June 2004, Cropper appeared with Dunn and Jones as the backing band for Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, held at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Others who appeared included Joe Walsh and David Hidalgo. On June 9, 2005, Cropper was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
He co-produced The Memphis Album (2007), recorded by Australian soul singer Guy Sebastian. Cropper also played guitar on the following promotional tour, which was recorded and released two years later as The Memphis Tour. On March 2, 2008 Cropper and Sebastian were guests on the Vega Sunday Session with host Mark Gable from the rock band the Choirboys. On July 29, 2008, Cropper and Felix Cavaliere released the album Nudge It Up A Notch. In August 2008, Cropper appeared at the Rhythm Festival alongside the Animals.
On November 12, 2009, EMP/SFM presented Cropper with their "Founders Award." On October 17, 2010, Cropper was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
On August 9, 2011, Cropper released the album Dedicated which was his tribute to the "5" Royales.
I hope that you enjoyed learning about Steve Cropper, “The Soul Man” as much as I did!
As always, I am open to suggestions regarding artists to write about here! I would enjoy hearing from you either in the comments or by email.
Until next time ~
Musician By Night . . .
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