Steve Cropper, the iconic and influential guitarist who starred with Booker T. & The MG’s, played on many Stax Records hits and with The Blues Brothers band, has died. He was 84. The Associated PRess confirmed the news, citing a source who was informed by Cropper’s family.
No cause, place or date of death was provided, but his longtime associate Eddie Gore told the AP he was with Cropper on Tuesday at a Nashville rehabilitation facility, where the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer had been after a recent fall.
A two-time Grammy winner, Cropper was the axman on Stax sides by such legendary acts as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and others. Often referred to as “The Colonel,” he played on numerous chart-topping soul hits and pop crossovers including Redding’s posthumous classic “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” which he co-wrote along with and Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” in which he famously was called out with “Play it, Steve!” before one lick. John Belushi would repeat that phrase in the Blues Brothers’ cover a decade later.
Born on October 21, 1941, on a farm in Dora, Missouri, Cropper got his first guitar at 14 and played in teenager band The Royal Spades that would morph into The Mar-Kays. He already had done session work for Sun Records and other labels when The Mar-Keys scored a Top 5 pop and R&B hit in 1961 with “Last Night,” on which Cropper played organ but not guitar. The group recorded for Satellite Records, which was threatened with a lawsuit by a California label and would later become Stax Records.
Cropper would spend the next decade at Stax as the go-to guitarist — along with working as an A&R man, engineer, producer and songwriter. He also co-penned and played on such classics as Wilson’s “In the Midnight Hour” and Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood” — which was remade as a disco track by Amii Stewart on went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979.
In the summer of 1962, Cropper teamed with keyboardist Booker T. Jones, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and bassist Lewie Steinberg for a Stax session. During a jam session, label owner Jim Stewart ran a tape recorder, unbeknownst to the players. They liked when they heard and began working on a B-side that would evolve into the instrumental soul touchstone “Green Onions.”
Christened, Booker T. & The MG’s, the group’s debut album took that song’s title, and the single climbed to No. 3 on the Hot 100, with the LP reaching the Top 40. Cropper’s childhood friend Donald “Duck” Dunn replaced Steinberg in 1964, and the group went on to record such memorable tracks as “Time Is Tight” and “Hang ‘Em High” — both of which made the pop Top 10 — and R&Bs hits including “Boot-leg,” “Hip Hug-Her,” “Groovin’,” and many others.
The group would wind down by the end of the 1960s, and Cropper left Stax in 1970 to co-launch TMI aka Trans-Maximus, a recording studio and record company. During the first part of the Me Decade, Cropper produced and played on sessions recorded at TMI or Ardent by the likes of Jeff Beck, Jose Feliciano, Poco, Yvonne Elliman John Prine and Tower Of Power. He also produced John Cougar’s 1980 debut LP Nothing Matters and What If It Did.
The MG’s reunited briefly in 1977 to record the LP Universal Language for David Geffen’s Asylum Records, with Willie Hall replacing Jackson, who died two years earlier. Not long after that, Cropper and Dunn teamed with The Band alum Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars. Then came a phone call that would lead to a new generation of fans.
Saturday Night Live originals John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were looking for musicians to back them for an SNL collective that would become known as The Blues Brothers. Decked out in black fedoras, skinny ties and dark shades “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues warbled their way through “Soul Man” in an April 1978 episode, and a disco-tiring nation was transfixed.
Joining Cropper, Dunn and SNL musical director Paul Shaffer were soul legends Matt “Guitar” Murphy, “Blue” Lou Marini, Tom “Bones” Malone, and Alan “Mr. Fabulous” Rubin. The group then opened multiple shows for hot comic and “King Tut” hitmaker Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, and those recordings were repurposed for an LP.
Packed with soul and blues covers from the previous 20-plus years, Briefcase Full of Blues stormed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It spawned a Top 15 single in “Soul Man” and a Top 40 follow-up in “Rubber Biscuit,” which featured Aykroyd as Elwood, well, rubbery semi-scatting. Pop and rock fans swooned, but blues aficionados stewed over the band and its success.
But that success soon would draw Hollywood’s attention.
John Landis, who had directed Belushi’s 1978 breakout movie Animal House, teamed with Aykroyd to write The Blues Brothers, a wild, expensive, stunt- and music-filled romp that Aykroyd co-wrote and Landis helmed. He and Belushi donned their matching black suits in a star-laden film whose stunts almost overshadowed its incredible musical performances. James Brown covered the gospel classic “The Old Landmark,” Aretha Franklin sang “Think,” Ray Charles played “Shake a Tail Feather,” John Lee Hooker did a streetside version of “Boom Boom.” In the finale, Cab Calloway led The Blues Brothers Band in a memorable, call-and-response take on “Minnie the Moocher.”
The plot? An excuse for the performance and car chases/crashes. You want star power? How about the likes of John Candy, Henry Gibson, Steve Lawrence and Twiggy, who was jilted by Elwood. There also was Carrie Fisher, who hilariously recurred as a vengeful ex of Jake’s who is bent on destroying him — with ever-increasing firepower and futility. Coincidentally, her Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back kept The Blues Brothers from being the No. 1 film in the country. It ranked as the No. 10 box office film of 1980.
Cropper and the other group members who’d played on SNL reprised their roles in the film, spurred by the oft-quoted taglines, “We’re getting the band back together” and “We’re on a mission from God.” Cropper and others would return for a 1998 sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, in which John Goodman replaced the late Belushi.
Steve Cropper, right, with Matt “Guitar” Murphy in ‘The Blues Brothers’ (1980)
Universal Pictures/Everett Collection
Cropper had released his solo debut LP in 1969 for Stax, and he resumed his solo career with a pair of early-’80s albums for MCA: Playin’ My Thang and Night After Night. During the ’90s, he launched Play It, Steve! Records and continued to work as a session guitarist into the 2020s.
Among the dozens of big-name acts Cropper played with over the decades are John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, B.B. King, Albert King, Alabama, Jimmy Buffett, Harry Nilsson, Leon Russell, The Staples Singers, Peter Frampton, Etta James, Richie Havens, Chris Willman, Al Kooper and Chicago.
Cropper’s music and lyrics have been heard in hundreds of films and TV shows ranging from American Graffiti, Quadrophenia and the ultralow-budget The Hollywood Knights — which featured the big-screen debuts of Michelle Pfeiffer, Tony Danza and star Robert Wuhl — to Good Morning, Vietnam, A Bronx Tale, Indecent Proposal, Frasier, Get Shorty, The Big Lebowski and The Sopranos.
Cropper’s legacy is sealed with inclusion on a number of “all-time guitarist” lists. in 1996, the English magazine Mojo ranked his as the No. 2 axman behind Jimi Hendrix, and Rolling Stone put him at No. 36 in 2023. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Booker T. & The MG’s in 1992 and joined the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005. Cropper also is a nine-time Grammy nominee from 1968-2024, winning twice: Best Rhythm & Blues Song for (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” in 1969 and Best Pop Instrumental Performance for Booker T. & The MG’s track “Cruisin’” in 1977.
Information on survivors and a memorial service was incomplete.
