Photo: Leah Puttkammer/FilmMagic
Steve Cropper — who played guitar for Booker T. & the MG’s, the Blues Brothers, and Otis Redding — has died. He was 84. His son Cameron confirmed the news to Variety. Cropper was a multi-instrumentalist, a songwriter, and the guy John Belushi says “Play it, Steve” to on “Soul Man.”
Cropper was born in Dora, Missouri in 1941. His family moved to Memphis when he was 9, where he first encountered Black church music. Cropper’s relationship with Stax Records began with his first band. The group called themselves the Mar-Keys after the marquee outside the place that would become Stax HQ. He joined Stax house band Booker T. & the MG’s in 1962. He co-wrote “Green Onions,” Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” and “Knock on Wood.” Cropper left Stax in 1970 after what Variety called “front-office conflicts.” The MG’s kept working, however, and backed artists like Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, and Neil Young.
In 1978, Cropper played on the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full of Blues. Cropper appears in the 1980 eponymous film. He is recruited into the band alongside Murphy Dunne, and his band Murph and the Magic Tones. He appears in Blues Brothers 2000 — which, despite the name, came out in 1998.
Cropper amassed a number of accolades in his lifetime. “Green Onions” topped the R&B chart, and went to number 3 on the Hot 100. Briefcase Full of Blues went to number 1 on the album chart in 1978. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the MG’s in 1992. In 1996, Mojo named him the second best guitarist of all time, with only Jimi Hendrix ahead of him. The mag praised his “metronome-crisp timing; deadly-accurate chops; earth-moving bottom-line riffs; sharp, nasty little licks and grace notes. His solos never outstay their welcome or leave you wanting less.”
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