Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member who co-wrote
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Steve Cropper, the lean, soulful guitarist and songwriter who helped found the celebrated Memphis band Booker T. and the MG’s on Stax Records and co-wrote the classics “Green Onions,” “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” and “In the Midnight Hour,” has died. He was 84 years old.
Pat Mitchell Worley, president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, said Cropper’s family told him Cropper died Wednesday in Nashville. The foundation operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, located on the site of the former Stax Records, where Cropper worked for years.
The cause of death was not immediately known. Eddie Gore, his former associate, said he was with Cropper on Tuesday at a rehabilitation center in Nashville, where Cropper had been after a recent fall. Cropper had been working on new music when Gore visited him, he said.
“He’s such a good human being,” Gore said. “We were lucky to have him, for sure.”
The guitarist, songwriter and record producer wasn’t known for flashy playing, but his simple, catchy licks and solid rhythms helped define Memphis soul music. At a time when it was common for white musicians to appropriate the work of black artists and make more money from their songs, Cropper was that rare white artist willing to keep a lower profile and collaborate.
‘Play it, Steve!’
Cropper’s very name was immortalized in the 1967 hit “Soul Man,” recorded by Sam & Dave. Halfway through, singer Sam Moore shouts “Play it, Steve!” as Cropper nails a tight, resonant riff, a slide sound that Cropper used a Zippo lighter to create. The exchange was recreated in the late 1970s, when Cropper joined John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd’s group “The Blues Brothers” and played on their hit version of “Soul Man.”
In a 2020 interview with The News, Cropper talked about his career and how he mastered the art of filling voids with an essential lick or two.
“I listen to the other musicians and the singer,” Cropper said. “I don’t just listen to myself. I make sure I sound good before we start the session. Once we’ve presented the song, I listen to it and the way they perform it. And I play with all that stuff. That’s what I do. That’s my style.”
When once asked about Cropper, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards said simply, “Perfect, man.” In an instructional YouTube video, guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa says Cropper’s moves are often copied.
“If you haven’t heard the name Steve Cropper, you’ve heard it in a song,” Bonamassa said.
He got his first guitar at 14 years old.
Cropper was born near Dora, Missouri, but moved with his family to Memphis when he was 9 and got his first guitar through the mail at age 14, according to his website, playitsteve.com. Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed and Chet Atkins were among his early influences.
Cropper was a Stax artist even before the label was called Stax, which Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton had founded as Satellite Records in 1957. In the early 1960s, Satellite signed Cropper and his instrumental band Royals Spades. The band soon changed their name to Mar-Keys and had a hit with “Last Night.”
Satellite was soon renamed Stax, where some of the Mar-Keys became the label’s trumpet section, while Cropper and other Mar-Keys formed Booker T. and the MG’s. With Cropper, keyboardist Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson, they were known for their hit instrumentals “Green Onions,” “Hang ‘Em High,” and “Time Is Tight,” and backed Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and others.
The racially integrated band, a rarity in its time, was so admired that even non-Stax artists recorded with them, notably Wilson Pickett. Jones, who is the only 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 said in the AP interview. “We were all there for the same reason: to get a hit record.”
Inspired by the gospel song.
In the mid-1960s, Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler brought Pickett to work with the Stax musicians. During a 2015 meeting with the National Music Publishers Association, Cropper acknowledged that he had never heard of Pickett before working with him. He found some Pickett gospel recordings, got carried away with the phrase “I’ll see my Jesus at midnight,” and, with a slight change, helped write a secular standard.
“The man up there has been forgiving me for this ever since!” said.
Cropper was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a member of Booker T. and the MG’s. That year, Cropper, Dunn and Jones played an all-star tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden. Al Jackson died in 1975, Dunn in 2012.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked Cropper No. 39 on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists, calling him “the secret ingredient to some of the best rock and soul songs.”
Cropper was especially close to Redding. In an interview on his website, Cropper recalled their collaboration on “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” completed shortly before Redding’s death in a plane crash in December 1967 and a No. 1 hit in 1968.
The haunting folk ballad was a bittersweet reflection of her triumphant appearance a few months earlier at the Monterey Pop Festival. Cropper would remember adding the finishing touches to the recording while still grieving for Redding.
“We had been looking for the crossover song,” he said. “This song, we knew we had it.”
Cropper was in the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers” and its sequel, “Blues Brothers 2000,” playing “The Colonel” in the Blues Brothers band. In real life, he toured with them.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 and two years later received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Cropper continued recording into his final years, including 2024’s “Friendlytown,” which was nominated for a Grammy. Earlier this year, Cropper received the Tennessee Governor’s Arts Award, the state’s highest honor in the arts.
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News national writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report from New York.
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Marianne Faithfull, the singer and actress known for contributing to the British invasion of the United States in the 1960s, died on January 30, 2025. She was 78 years old. She was known as the “crown princess” of the 1960s “Swinging London” scene and released more than 20 music albums throughout her career. He also appeared in several films, including “I’ll Never Forget What My Name Is” (1967), “The Girl on the Motorcycle” (1968) and “Marie Antoinette” (2006).
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Ken Flores
Comedian Ken Flores passed away on January 28, 2025, shortly after embarking on a national tour. He was 28 years old. Flores, who was originally from Chicago, had built a following through concerts at venues such as Los Angeles’ Laugh Factory, The Comedy Store and the Hollywood Improv.
The song is just
Pablo Danan
Paul Danan, an actor best known for his portrayal of Sol Patrick on the British soap opera “Hollyoaks,” died at his home in Bristol, England, on January 15, 2025. He was 46 years old.