Steve Cropper with William Bell and Eddie Floyd - Photo by Chip Stone ©2007

Steve Cropper

©2007 By Bronson Herrmuth

TG Shepard with Steve Cropper - Photo by Chip Stone ©2007

Just some of the artists he has produced, all recordings he also played guitar on:
Wilson Pickett - Poco - Jeff Beck - Jose Feliciano - Yvonne Elliman - John Prine - Tower Of Power - John Cougar - Rufus Thomas - Mavis Staples

As a solo recording artist, he has released 4 albums:
Stax Records, 1969, With A Little Help From My Friends
MCA Records, 1980, Playin' My Thang
MCA Records, 1982, Night After Night
Play It Steve! Records, 1998, Play It Steve!

As a band member of The Mar-Keys, Booker T. and The MG's, or The Blues Brothers:
Satellite Records, 1961, Last Night, The Mar-Keys
Stax Records, 1962, Green Onions, Booker T. and The MG's
Asylum Records, 1977, Universal Language, Booker T. and The MG's
Atlantic Records, 1978, Briefcase Full of Blues, The Blues Brothers
Atlantic Records, 1980, Made In America, The Blues Brothers
WEA International, 1989, Live From Montreaux, The Blues Brothers
Red, White and Blues, 1992, The Blues Brothers
House Of Blues Records, 1997, Live From Chicago's HOB, The Blues Brothers
Fantasy Records, 1998, 3 CD box set, Booker T. and The MG's

As a session guitar player, some of the artists who's records he has performed on include:
Sam & Dave - Otis Redding - Eddie Floyd - Jerry Lee Lewis - Aretha Franklin - Elton John Rod Stewart - Etta James - John Lennon - Ringo Starr - Paul Simon - Peter Frampton - Buddy Guy - Johnny Lang - Steppenwolf - Art Garfunkel - Albert King - Pop Staples - Neil Sedaka - Leon Russell - Chris Hillman - Richie Furay - Wendy Waldman - Bob Dylan - Richie Havens - Roy Buchanan - Levon Helm - Duane Eddy - Buddy Miles - Boz Scaggs - Aaron Neville - Wynonna Judd - Jimmy Buffett - Rufus Thomas and Wayne Newton.

Tanya Tucker with Steve Cropper - Photo by Chip Stone ©2007

As an actor, he has appeared in both hit movies made by The Blues Brothers. The first in 1980 titled The Blues Brothers with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and the second in 1998 with Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman, and Jim Belushi, titled Blues Brothers 2000.

In 1996, MOJO Magazine compiled a list of the top 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and Steve Cropper was ranked #2, behind Jimi Hendrix. A muliti-instrumentalist, he also plays bass guitar, piano, and organ.

A successful studio owner on Music Row in Nashville, Steve Cropper continues to make lots of music. He heads his own label, Play It Steve! Records, and his guitar playing is still in great demand here in the US and abroad. He also designed a guitar for Peavey, called the Steve Cropper Classic.

Steve recently celebrated 50 years of soul with a star studded concert at the world famous Ryman Auditorium. At this event he was joined on stage by some of his friends, including:
Delbert McClinton - James Burton - John Kay - Lee Roy Parnell - Randy Owen - B.J. Thomas - Michael McDonald - Felix Cavaliere - John Anderson - T. Graham Brown - Mark Farner - Danny Shirlely - Beth Nielsen Chapman - Rob Paparozza - Ray Vega - Robben Ford and Peter Gallagher.

The house band at this very special show consisted of David Michael Santos, Jim Horn, Mark Beckett, Bob Britt, Mark Jordan, Roy Agee, Steve Herrman, Sam Levine along with several great back-up singers. All there to help celebrate 50 years of Soul with the soul man himself, Steve Cropper.

William Bell with Steve Cropper - Photo by Chip Stone ©2007

Steve Cropper interview with Bronson Herrmuth
Recorded on November 27, 2007 in Nashville, TN
An excerpt from this 45 minute interview

Download this excerpt (6.1 MB mp3)

Steve talks about how he became a member of the Blues Brothers Band

B: How did you become a member of the Blues Brothers Band, how did that come about?
SC: (laughing) Well, there's a lot of history behind that situation, I'll try to make it quick, it's a good story. We had been friends with Levon Helm for a long time and I don't know if there's very many people out there that remember when the Band did their concert called The Last Waltz ...

B: What a show ...
SC: Oh it was fantastic and the artists that were on that and so forth ...

B: Still is today if you watch it ...
SC: Well yeah, it's still a great performance, but the gist of that was that was gonna be to their last concert and they were splitting up as a band and we all know how famous they were and they were all, you know Roberson and everbody, they were all gonna go separate ways. So I get a phone call from Duck Dunn, we were living out in California, and Duck said, "Do you need me for anything in the next week or so?" and I said, "Well I don't have anything coming up", 'cause you know anytime I had a session or whatever, I'd be using Duck on bass and so forth, and he said, "Well I just got a call last night from Levon Helm and he's recording a new album and he wants me to come up to Woodstock and play on it". I said, "Well man go have a ball and tell Levon I said hello", (laughing) you know ....

B: Yeah ...
SC: ... and about two days later I get a phone call and he said, "Levon wants to know what you're doing in the next couple of weeks", (laughing) and I said, "Well, believe it or not I don't have any projects, I'm not mixing anything and I don't have any sessions coming up". In those days out in California, that was in the '70's, I was doing a lot of sessions and a lot of recording, a lot of producing and stuff, but it just so happened that I wasn't doing anything at that time and he said, "Well he wants you to come up and play on this". I was up there with Nashvilles' Fred Carter, he played on that, and Dr. John and Paul Butterfield and the horns that were on that were the horns from "Saturday Night Live" (SNL). We recorded an album and they decided to go on the road with it and we did, we went out and did kind of a summer tour. We went all over the United States and we also did a tour in Japan which was a lot of fun, and then about a year or so later he decided to do another album and another tour, which we did and it was basically the same guys.

John Belushi saw us perform at the Paladium in New York on a New Years Eve show and it was a lot of fun and he hung and came to the after party and all that sort of stuff, and he really liked that band. So they had been doing this thing called the Blues Brothers that started out as the Buzzy Bees I think was the first time, and then they got the idea of doin' the hats and glasses and being blues guys, and they used to go out and entertain the audience as a warm up. Go out and do a song or two before they actually started the taping of SNL. The story that I got was there was this one week when one of the scripts wasn't working. They kept doing the rewrites and by show time they just didn't have it together. Lorne Michaels (Executive producer, SNL) said, "Get the hats and glasses on and go out there and do that and fill that spot", because they had this blank spot in the show and so they did. Well the fan mail and the response to that was just overwhelming, so they kept it on the show and that was done with the SNL band that existed then which was with the horn players that are still with the Blues Brothers today.

Steve Martin, who was a writer for SNL and used to do the show quite a bit, had this record out called King Tut which was way up the charts. It was a goofy thing (laughing) but it was very popular and so he got this offer to do, I think it was nine dates at the Universal Amphitheater out in LA. So he called Belushi and he said, "Look, I'm contracted to do these nine dates and I want you and Danny to open the show for me", and John said, "Well we don't do stand up comedy, what do you want us to do?" He said, "I don't care what you do, I just want you to open for me", and so John says, "Well can we play music?" he said, "Sure if you wanna play music, okay." So he goes to Tom Mallone, then the leader of the band on SNL and he said, "Tom, here's what's going on, here's what we need to do, we've gotta put a band together", and the question was, and this is what Tom Malone told me, the question was, "Do we take the whole SNL band or do you have some other ideas of musicians?", and he said, "You gotta get Cropper and Dunn", or Dunn and Cropper, from the second movie (laughing) if you remember us being DJ's...

B:Yeah
SC: ...He said "Their like old road dogs. We've been out on the road with them with Levon Helm for two years and you know those guys, you saw them play at the Paladium". Tom was trying to describe me to John, and he said "The guy with the long hair? He's not a guitar player, he's a roadie", and Tom says, "No man, that's Steve Cropper from Stax and all that", (laughing) and he said, "No man, that guys a roadie. I saw him at the after party." So anyway, John was with Phil Waldon who was Otis Reddings manager, one night in New York in a limo or whatever, and he said, "You know, you were Otis's manager. Tell me about this Steve Cropper guy, what's he look like?". So Phil described me and he said, "God it really is him."

So I got a phone call. I was in the studio mixing Robben Fords album. I was just about done with it and I had about two songs left and I get this call and it's John Belushi on the phone. I thought it was a friend of mine pulling a prank 'cause that's the way he used to get in whenever we had the phones shut off and we were busy mixing, and he said, "This is John Belushi, and I said, "Okay" (laughing) and he said, "I need you up here. Put you on a plane, I need you up here tomorrow, we're gonna start rehearsing. We're gonna do some shows and I'm putting a band together. I've already got Duck Dunn and the rest of the guys and I need you up here." I said, "I can't do it today, there's no way. I'm in the middle of mixing an album and I know I'm not gonna be finished for another week", and he said "Well I gotta have ya, gotta have ya", kept me on the phone, finally I got him off the phone after about 45 minutes or so, and Robben Ford was sitting in the control room and he said, "Who were you talking to?" and I said "John Belushi and he wants me to come to New York and be in a band", and he said, "I'll do it", and I said, "No you won't." (laughing) So I beat Robben Ford out on that one 'cause Robben probably would have done it ya know. He's a much better guitar player then I am, but anyway ....

B: Oh I don't know about that ...
SC: So I talked to Robben and I talked with my engineers and I said, "What if we do this. We've got two more songs to mix. What if I go up there, I'll call 'em and see if I can put them off a day, and you guys finish mixing the album. We can fedex overnight the mixes to me and I'll listen to them and if there's any changes and all that", and they said that would be fine. And thank God Robben agreed to do that. Some artists wouldn't but he did.

Visit Steve Cropper on line at his web site www.playitsteve.com

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