It’s not often you hear people describe a guitarist who doesn’t generally do solos as one of the all-time greats. But countless other guitar greats gave that accolade to Steve Cropper.
In a career spanning nearly 70 years, Cropper played on more than 400 recordings, including some of the best-known soul songs of all time, and accumulated more than 3,500 writing, co-writing, production, and arranging credits.
But he never sought the limelight; never courted fame; content to play simple but effective guitar licks and rhythm chops that were always just right for the song.
That’s how he saw his role in the band – not stepping forward to show off for an audience. So here’s a rare solo from Cropper, who’s happily doing what he always did… until the three-minute mark, when he finally steps into the limelight for a short while.
He will forever be associated with the Stax Records house band, better known as Booker T and the MGs, and co-wrote and played on their signature song, the instrumental Green Onions. But there was so much more to him than that.
For a start he co-wrote (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay with Otis Redding, and Knock On Wood with Eddie Floyd, and In The Midnight Hour with Wilson Pickett.
Cropper had never heard of him before the singer signed to Stax but did his homework, coming up with the title after hearing a gospel recording by Pickett singing the line: “I’ll see my Jesus in the midnight hour.”
Then there’s his contribution to Sam & Dave’s classic Soul Man, immortalised when Sam calls out “Play it Steve!” in mid-song, and Cropper obliges with a ringing riff he created by using a Zippo lighter to create a slide effect.
Among his 400-plus recordings, one of his lesser-known contributions was the guitar behind Rod Stewart’s impassioned (aka creepy) vocal on Tonight’s The Night – recorded at Muscle Shoals in Alabama – and, perhaps least likely of all, power pop legends Big Star’s cover of the Velvets’ song Femme Fatale.
The MGs were a rarity at the time, especially in the Deep South, being a racially mixed band of two black musicians – keyboard player Booker T Jones and drummer Al Jackson – with two white men: bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn and Cropper.
Cropper had formed his first band, The Royal Spades, back in 1958. They morphed into They were The Mar-Keys, who were the house band of Satellite Records.
When the label evolved into Stax, Cropper and 17-year-old organist Booker T Jones formed The MGs with Dunn and bassist Lewis Steinberg (another white musician, replaced in 1965 by Dunn).
Cropper co-wrote and played on numerous recordings with the label, by artists including Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Don Covay, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King, Pops Staples and William Bell.
Leaving Stax in 1970, he became a highly sought-after session man, playing with everyone from Ringo Starr to John Prine, BB King, Roy Orbison and Dolly Parton, and jazzmen Buddy Miles and Ramsay Lewis.
I could go on…