Steve Cropper

Steve Cropper stands out as perhaps the most recognizable soul guitarist on the planet. Early in the 1960s he first gained notice through the Mar-Keys, after which he helped establish the core Stax studio ensemble Booker T. & the MG's and composed their signature success “Green Onions.” His distinctive warm, full-bodied, riff-driven approach has graced roughly four hundred tracks overall. As a central architect of Southern soul’s rise to prominence, he left an enduring imprint both through his guitar work behind Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Carla Thomas, and others and through his songwriting. His more than 3,500 credits for composing, co-composing, producing, and arranging encompass such landmarks as “In the Midnight Hour” and “(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay,” each of which he co-authored. His first solo outing, With a Little Help from My Friends, appeared in 1969. Throughout most of the 1970s he concentrated on producing recordings by fellow artists. During the 1980s he played a decisive role in reviving the classic Stax aesthetic after being recruited for the Blues Brothers. Into the twenty-first century he stayed in constant demand as a producer, collaborator, and supporting musician. Nudge It Up a Notch surfaced in 2008, Midnight Flyer followed in 2010, and Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales arrived in 2011; that all-star tribute featured contributions from B.B. King, Bettye Lavette, and Shemekia Copeland. Just months before turning eighty, he issued Fire It Up in 2021 and then Friendlytown in 2024.

Born on a farm in Dora, Missouri, Cropper relocated with his family at age nine to Memphis, Tennessee, where his initial encounter with Black gospel music redirected his path. At fourteen he acquired his first guitar and learned by ear from recordings of Tal Farlow, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Chet Atkins, and Lowman Pauling of the Five Royales. At eighteen he joined guitarist Charlie Freeman to form the Royal Spades in 1958; the ensemble later evolved into the Mar-Keys, who secured occasional sessions at Satellite before the label became Stax. Their debut single, the million-selling number-three hit “Last Night,” emerged in 1961 and was followed in early 1962 by the four-track EP Do the Pop-Eye. That same year Cropper, along with several Mar-Keys stand-ins—seventeen-year-old organist Booker T. Jones, drummer Al Jackson, Jr., and bassist Lewis Steinberg—created a tighter house band, Booker T. & the MG’s; Donald “Duck” Dunn took over for Steinberg in 1965. The group released the landmark single “Green Onions” and the album of the same name later that year. In addition to his instrumental, arranging, and production duties with the Mar-Keys and the MG’s, label chief Jim Stewart appointed Cropper A&R director at Stax.

Between 1965 and 1969 he produced and performed on more than one hundred singles and over two dozen albums for artists that included Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Mavis Staples, and Don Covay. Although he had accumulated songwriting and arranging credits since 1959, his stature as a writer grew at Stax, where he co-composed dozens of hits beginning in 1962. In 1965 alone he co-wrote “Just One More Day” with Redding, “In the Midnight Hour” with Pickett, “Chicken Scratch” with Rufus Thomas, “See Saw” with Covay, and “Comfort Me” for Carla Thomas. Late in 1967 he and Redding finished “(Sitting On) The Dock of the Bay,” which stayed unreleased until after the singer’s death and became the first posthumous single to top the U.S. pop charts. In 1969 Cropper engineered and played on Johnnie Taylor’s Raw Blues, recorded the collaborative Jammed Together with Albert King and Pops Staples, cut William Bell’s Bound to Happen and Delaney & Bonnie’s Home, and also issued his debut solo album With a Little Help from My Friends, which contained his own instrumental renditions of material he had written, played on, or produced.

Cropper departed Stax in 1970. With Jerry Williams and former Mar-Key Ronnie Stoots he established TMI Studios, yet he continued to perform, arrange, and engineer for his previous label. At TMI he expanded his scope, becoming a highly sought session guitarist and producer. Besides working with Eddie Floyd and other soul performers, he appeared on recordings by Ringo Starr, John Prine, Buddy Miles, and Ramsey Lewis, among others. As a producer he handled projects for Jose Feliciano, Mitch Ryder, Poco, Dreams (the jazz-rock supergroup featuring the Brecker Brothers, Billy Cobham, and John Abercrombie), the Jeff Beck Group, Roy Head, and additional acts.

In 1975 Cropper and the rest of Booker T. & the MG’s moved to Los Angeles. He began producing Ned Doheny, Tower of Power, and Robben Ford while still collaborating with Floyd. Tragedy struck when MG’s drummer Jackson was found murdered at home. That year Cropper also supplied extensive guitar on John Lennon’s Phil Spector-produced Rock ’n’ Roll. In 1977 he joined Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars, with whom he recorded two acclaimed albums and toured globally.

In 1978 Cropper united with an ensemble of veteran musicians to support John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as the Blues Brothers on a Saturday Night Live sketch. The segment proved so popular that it generated the studio album Briefcase Full of Blues, the 1980 Hollywood film and soundtrack The Blues Brothers, and the subsequent live-in-studio release Made in America. Amid this intense schedule he maintained steady session work on recordings by Rod Stewart, Leon Russell, Kenny Rankin, and Big Star’s 3rd. In 1980 he produced and played on John Cougar Mellencamp’s Top 40 hit Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did.

Cropper delivered his second album, Playin’ My Thang, for MCA in 1981; it featured an extensive roster that included Dunn, Blues Brothers drummer Willie Hall, keyboardist David Paich, a full horn section, and others. A year later he followed with Night After Night, whose participants comprised top-tier session players and vocalists such as Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, David Hood, Barry Beckett, Bonnie Bramlett, and Burton Cummings. After Belushi’s death in 1982 the Blues Brothers kept touring with rotating singers and musicians, then regrouped in 1988 for a world tour, after which Cropper left Los Angeles for Nashville. In Music City he contributed studio work for country artists including Mickey Gilley, Dolly Parton, Janie Fricke, and Jimmy Buffett while also recording with Rod Stewart, B.B. King, and Etta James in blues and pop contexts. In 1989 he played on the track “The Only One” during sessions for Roy Orbison’s final studio album Mystery Girl.

In 1990 the Blues Brothers released Montreux Live! and Booker T. & the MG’s issued their reunion album McLemore Avenue. In 1992, following an all-star session for Etta James’s Jerry Wexler-produced The Right Time, Cropper worked on Wynonna Judd’s solo debut Tell Me Why and collaborated with blueswoman Angela Strehli and guitarist Joe Louis Walker. He appeared on Paul Simon’s Songs from the Capeman in 1997, joined the cast of the film Blues Brothers 2000 in 1998, and reunited the band for a tour. He also contributed guitar to Ringo Starr’s Vertical Man, Buddy Guy’s Heavy Love, Jonny Lang’s Wander This World, and the soundtrack for John Carpenter’s Vampires.

During the early years of the twenty-first century Cropper performed on soundtracks and anthologies. In 2001 he played on John Kay’s Heretics & Privateers and joined an illustrious lineup of guitarists—including Peter Green, Gary Moore, and Billy Gibbons—on John Mayall’s Along for the Ride. In 2003 he assembled the band, produced, mixed, and performed on Shemekia Copeland’s widely praised The Soul Truth. Two years later he and a large group of session luminaries that included Reggie Young, Spooner Oldham, Al Kooper, and Dan Penn joined Frank Black’s studio band for Honeycomb and reprised those roles on Fast Man Raider Man the following year. In 2008 he guided the sessions for Guy Sebastian’s The Memphis Album.

For the Copeland project Cropper recruited longtime friend and former Young Rascals lead vocalist and songwriter Felix Cavaliere as a collaborator. They formed their own studio band in 2008 and, produced by Jon Tiven, recorded Nudge It Up a Notch for the relaunched Stax label. Cropper was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010. He and Cavaliere released the follow-up Midnight Flyer that year, co-producing it with Tom Hambridge. In 2011 he issued the deeply personal Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales—and especially their influential guitarist Lowman “Pete” Pauling—on 429 Records. His expansive, star-studded ensemble featured instrumentalists Spooner Oldham, Steve Jordan, and Willie Jones along with vocalists Copeland, B.B. King, Keb’ Mo’, Delbert McClinton, Bettye Lavette, and Lucinda Williams. Co-produced with Tiven and with horn arrangements by Neal Sugarman, the album was mixed by Brian May.

In 2012 Cropper joined Jerry Lee Lewis for Third Man Live 04-17-2011, and two years later he performed on the Ed Palermo Big Band’s Electric Butter. He collaborated with Tiven and Stephen Kalinich on Each Soul Has a Voice in 2014 and, in 2017, released The Last Shade of Blue Before Black with the Blues Brothers Band and guests that included Dr. John, Eddie Floyd, Paul Shaffer, and Joe Louis Walker. He returned to work with Copeland in 2018 as guitarist on the Will Kimbrough-produced America’s Child.

In April 2021 Cropper released his own Fire It Up for Provogue. Co-produced with Tiven, the Grammy-nominated album centered on the pair in a core quartet completed by vocalist Roger C. Reale and drummer Nioshi Jackson; Cavaliere supplied guest keyboards on two tracks, while additional drummers Chester Thompson, Omar Hakim, and Anton Fig were also enlisted.

Cropper returned with Friendlytown in August 2024. Co-produced with Jon Tiven, the thirteen-song collection featured guests ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Queen’s Brian May.