Steve Cropper, a founding member of Booker T. & the M.G.’s whose distinctive funky guitar licks graced R&B and soul hits from the iconic Stax Records label and on tracks performed by The Blues Brothers, has died. He was 84.
The Associated Press reported that Cooper died on Wednesday in Nashville. Pat Mitchell Worley, president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, said Cropper’s family told her about his time of death. According to AP, a cause of death was not immediately known.
Eddie Gore, a longtime associate, reportedly said he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville at a rehabilitation facility, after a recent fall, according to AP. Gore also alleges that Cooper had been working on new music when he visited him at the facility.
The Soulsville Foundation operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis. It’s located at the former Stax Records, Cropper’s old workplace.
Cropper, who backed such artists as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas & Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor and produced many of their records, was ranked No. 45 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” in 2023.
“Think of the introduction to Sam & Dave’s ‘Soul Man,’ the explosive bent notes in Booker T.’s ‘Green Onions’ or the filigreed guitar fills in Redding’s ‘(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay’ — they all bear Cropper’s signature sound, the quintessence of soul guitar,” Douglas Wolk wrote.
In 1996, Britain’s Mojo magazine called him the “the greatest living guitar player.”
Cropper, who used a 1956 Fender Esquire and later a blonde Fender Telecaster on many of the early Stax recordings, in 1969 earned the first of his two career Grammys for “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay, which he co-wrote with Redding. He was mixing the song within days of the funeral for the singer, who died in a plane crash in Wisconsin in December 1967.
Cropper also teamed with performers Wilson Pickett and Eddie Floyd to co-write their hits “In the Midnight Hour” and “Knock on Wood,” respectively.
When John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd formed The Blues Brothers in 1978, they came looking for Cropper, and “The Colonel” led their backing band on tours, albums and in the 1980 film directed by John Landis.
Along the way, Cropper also played on albums from Paul Simon, Ringo Starr, Buddy Guy, Jonny Lang, Elton John, Steppenwolf, John Louis Walker and many others.
A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame, Cropper shunned the spotlight and did not favor lengthy guitar solos. “I don’t care about being center stage,” he said. “I’m a band member, always been a band member.”
Born on Oct. 21, 1941, on a farm near Dora, Missouri, Steven Lee Cropper moved with his family to Memphis when he was 9, and before long, he was strumming his brother-in-law’s Gibson guitar. He received his own guitar by mail order at 14, when he began playing with local musicians.
He said his earliest influences were The 5 Royales’ Lowman Pauling, Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Reed and Billy Butler.
While still in high school, Cropper formed the Royal Spades with fellow guitarist Charlie Freeman, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and saxophone player Packy Axton. They soon changed their name to The Mar-Keys, a reference to the marquee at the former Capitol movie theater that would become Satellite Records.
(Satellite, which would morph into Stax, was a record store and recording studio owned by Axton’s mother, Estelle, and her brother, Jim Stewart. Cropper started working there as a record clerk.)
In 1961, The Mar-Keys reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the organ- and sax-driven instrumental “Last Night” on Satellite. Cropper, who was attending Memphis State as a mechanical engineering student at the time, played organ.
Quitting The Mar-Keys midway through their debut tour, he was given the keys to the Stax studio and became, along with Stewart, the label’s A&R man and engineer.
In 1962, he and keyboardist Booker T. Jones worked with drummer Al Jackson Jr. and bassist Lewie Steinberg at a recording session for Billy Lee Riley, and they would become Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the in-house band at Stax.
When a rockabilly singer they were hired to accompany finished early one session, the quartet began to jam and were surreptitiously recorded by Stewart in 1962. One of the songs to emerge from that was the B-side instrumental “Green Onions,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 3 on the Hot 100.
Other hits followed, including “Mo’ Onions,” “Soul Dressing,” “Boot-Leg,” “My Sweet Potato,” “Hip Hug-Her,” “Groovin’,” “Soul Limbo,” “Hang ’Em High,” “Time Is Tight,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Something” and “Melting Pot.” (Dunn would replace Steinberg in the band in 1963).
The M.G.’s essentially split when Jones left Stax in 1968, followed in 1970 by Cropper, who launched the Trans-Maximus (TMI) recording studio and record company with Jerry Williams and Mar-Key bandmate Ronnie Stoots. He moved to California in 1974.
Cropper produced and played on sessions by Poco, Jeff Beck, José Feliciano, Yvonne Elliman, John Prine and Dreams and on Tower of Power’s 1978 album, We Came to Play, and on John Cougar Mellencamp’s breakthrough LP, 1980’s Nothin’ Matters and What if It Did.
In 1977, with Stax alum Willie Hall filling in for the late Jackson, the M.G.’s reunited to record Universal Language. Shortly afterward, Cropper and Dunn joined Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars before receiving a call from big fans Belushi and Aykroyd.
The original incarnation of the tribute act recorded three albums, including 1978’s chart-topping Briefcase Full of Blues. (Cropper was name-checked by Sam & Dave and The Blues Brothers — “Play It, Steve!” — on both versions of “Soul Man.”)
When The Blues Brothers went on hiatus following the 1982 death of Belushi, Cropper remained in demand as a producer and session guitarist. He also resumed his solo career, recording two albums for MCA, 1980’s Playin’ My Thang and 1982’s Night After Night. (His first solo effort was With A Little Help From My Friends, done for Stax in 1969.)
In 1992, Booker T. & the M.G.’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and three years later they won a Grammy for “Cruisin’” in the best pop instrumental performance category. They were further celebrated in 1997 with the publication of Rob Bowman’s Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records.
In 1998, Cropper played and appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 sequel, with John Goodman replacing Belushi, and worked on John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998). He also released a solo album, Play It, Steve! on his label, Play It Steve! Records.
He entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.
Nudge It Up a Notch, featuring Cropper and The Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere, came out in 2008 and marked a reunion with Stax. Two years later, they returned for the album Midnight Flyer, on Stax as well. In 2011, he played on the Dedicated: A Salute to The 5 Royales.
More recently, Cropper received a Grammy nomination in the contemporary blues album category for 2021’s Fire It Up, and Steve Cropper and the Midnight Hour recorded 2024’s Friendlytown, featuring Billy Gibbons and Brian May.
Survivors include his second wife, Angel, and their children, Andrea and Cameron.