He infallibly appears on ‘greatest guitarists of all time’ lists, was part of the house band at Stax Records where he backed and wrote for soul legends such as Otis Redding, Sam And Dave and Wilson Pickett, and had huge hits with Green Onions, Time Is Tight and Soul Limbo with his band Booker T & The MG’s. He now has a new solo album, Fire It Up, his first for a decade…

Words Neville Marten

Steve Cropper has worn many hats during his career in music: guitarist, songwriter, producer, A&R director and studio engineer

PHOTO BY MICHAEL WILSON

Bluegrass Meets Soul

“The music I grew up on is not the music I ended up playing. It was the same as the Kentucky bluegrass, except Kentucky made more of it, commercialised it. [My home state of] Missouri had the same music, and I did get to work with some of those guys. Tom Brumley played steel guitar and he used to date my cousin, so when his band would play at fairs and all, they’d drag me along and I’d get to hear them when I was a little bitty kid. When we lived in West Plains, we went to one concert that had some of the old Grand Ole Opry people on it, like the Carters, Rod Brasfield and Minnie Pearl.”

Silver Tones

“My uncle didn’t play guitar, but he had one and so I used to get that out and pluck it a little bit. Not really play it, but just pull the strings like a rubber band and make it vibrate. I was about seven or eight years old, I guess. Later I bought a Silvertone from Sears and Roebuck, an old country and western flat-top, and my dad said, ‘If you learn how to play that I’ll get you a good guitar.’ And he did. He bought a used electric guitar and I remember getting it and holding it. There’s a picture of me standing up and playing it. My mom took the picture and there’s a Christmas tree behind me – we’d just got it, so it was undecorated. That picture has been blown up and it’s in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.”

Origins Of The MG’s

“The Royal Spades became The Mar-Keys and we started playing clubs and stuff. We got a drummer and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn came in with the bass. He tried to learn guitar like we all did and wasn’t very good at it, but he came in with a bass one day and we said, ‘Okay, you’re hired.’ I remember when [saxophonist] Packy Axton said, ‘I understand you’ve got a good band, I wanna be in your band,’ and I said, ‘Well, we’re not looking for anybody, but what do you do?’ he said, ‘I play horn.’ I said, ‘How many years have you been playing?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve had three months of lessons.’ Then he said his uncle and his mother had a recording studio, and I said, ‘Hey, show up for rehearsal this Saturday!’ He became one of the world’s greatest saxophone players.”