MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Steve Cropper, the lean, soulful guitarist and songwriter who helped anchor the celebrated Memphis backing band Booker T. and the M.G.’s at Stax Data and co-wrote the classics “Green Onions,” ”(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” and “In the Midnight Hour,” has died. He was 84.
Pat Mitchell Worley, president and CEO of the Soulsville Basis, mentioned Cropper’s household instructed her that Cropper died on Wednesday in Nashville. The muse operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, situated on the website of the previous Stax Data, the place Cropper labored for years.
A reason behind dying was not instantly identified. Longtime affiliate Eddie Gore mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday at a rehabilitation facility in Nashville, the place Cropper had been after a current fall. Cropper had been engaged on new music when Gore visited, he mentioned.
“He’s such a good human,” Gore mentioned. “We were blessed to have him, for sure.”
The guitarist, songwriter and file producer was not identified for flashy taking part in, however his spare, catchy licks and strong rhythm chops helped outline Memphis soul music. At a time when it was widespread for white musicians to co-opt the work of Black artists and earn more money from their songs, Cropper was that uncommon white artist keen to maintain a decrease profile and collaborate.
‘Play it, Steve!’
Cropper’s very title was immortalized within the 1967 smash “Soul Man,” recorded by Sam & Dave. Halfway, singer Sam Moore calls out “Play it, Steve!” as Cropper pulls off a good, ringing riff, a slide sound that Cropper used a Zippo lighter to create. The trade was reenacted within the late Seventies when Cropper joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act “The Blues Brothers” and performed on their hit cowl of “Soul Man.”
In a 2020 interview with The Related Press, Cropper mentioned his profession and the way he mastered the artwork of filling gaps with an important lick or two.
“I listen to the other musicians and the singer,” Cropper mentioned. “I’m not listening to just me. I make sure I’m sounding OK before we start the session. Once we’ve presented the song, then I listen to the song and the way they interpret it. And I play around all that stuff. That’s what I do. That’s my style.”
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, requested as soon as about Cropper, mentioned merely, “Perfect, man.” On a YouTube educational video, guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa says Cropper’s strikes are sometimes copied.
“If you haven’t heard the name Steve Cropper, you’ve heard him in song,” Bonamassa mentioned.
He received his first guitar at 14
Cropper was born close to Dora, Missouri, however moved together with his household to Memphis when he was 9 and received his first mail-order guitar at age 14, in line with his web site, playitsteve.com. Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed and Chet Atkins have been amongst his early influences.
Cropper was a Stax artist earlier than the label was even referred to as Stax, which Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton had based as Satellite tv for pc Data in 1957. Within the early Sixties, Satellite tv for pc signed up Cropper and his instrumental band the Royals Spades. The band quickly modified its title to the Mar-Keys and had successful with “Last Night.”
Satellite tv for pc quickly was later renamed Stax, the place a number of the Mar-Keys grew to become the label’s horn part whereas Cropper and different Mar-Keys fashioned Booker T. and the M.G.’s. That includes Cropper, keyboard participant Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and drummer Al Jackson, they have been identified for his or her hit instrumentals “Green Onions,” “Hang ’Em High” and “Time Is Tight,” and backed Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and others.
The racially built-in band, a rarity in its day, was so admired that even non-Stax artists recorded with them, notably Wilson Pickett. Jones, who’s the one surviving member of the band, and Jackson are Black. Dunn and Cropper are white.
“When you walked in the door at Stax, there was absolutely no color,” Cropper mentioned within the AP interview. “We were all there for the same reason — to get a hit record.”
Impressed by gospel track
Within the mid-Sixties, Atlantic Data govt Jerry Wexler introduced Pickett to work with the Stax musicians. Throughout a 2015 gathering with the Nationwide Music Publishers Affiliation, Cropper acknowledged he had by no means heard of Pickett earlier than working with him. He discovered some gospel recordings by Pickett, was taken by the road “I’ll see my Jesus in the midnight hour” and with a slight change helped write a secular customary.
“The man up there has been forgiving me for this ever since!” he mentioned.
Cropper was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 1992 as a member of Booker T. and the M.G.’s. That 12 months, Cropper, Dunn and Jones performed in an all-star tribute at Madison Sq. Backyard to Bob Dylan. Al Jackson died in 1975, Dunn in 2012.
Rolling Stone journal ranked Cropper thirty ninth on its 100 Best Guitarists listing, calling him “the secret ingredient in some of the greatest rock and soul songs.”
Cropper was particularly near Redding. In an interview on his web site, Cropper recalled collaborating on “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” accomplished shortly earlier than Redding’s dying in a December 1967 aircraft crash and a No. 1 hit in 1968.
The brooding, folkish ballad was a bittersweet reflection on his triumphant look a number of months earlier on the Monterey Pop Pageant. Cropper would keep in mind including the ultimate touches on the recording whereas nonetheless grieving for Redding.
“We had been looking for the crossover song,” he mentioned. “This song, we knew we had it.”
Cropper was within the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers” and its follow-up, “Blues Brothers 2000,” portraying “The Colonel” within the Blues Brothers band. In actual life, he toured with them.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Corridor of Fame in 2005, and two years later obtained a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Cropper continued recording into his later years, together with 2024′s “Friendlytown,” which was nominated for a Grammy. Earlier this 12 months, Cropper obtained the Tennessee Governor’s Arts Award, the state’s highest honor within the arts.
Related Press Nationwide Author Hillel Italie contributed reporting from New York.
On-line: http://playitsteve.com
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