Steve Cropper
Steve Cropper
Steven Lee Cropper is an American guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, which backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. He also acted as the producer of many of these records. He was later a member of the Blues Brothers band. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on its list of the 100 greatest...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth21 October 1941
CityDora, MO
CountryUnited States of America
That record opened us up to a different way of musical thinking. We used that beat on a whole lot of records.
I started getting calls to do sessions as a guitarist. I never thought I was that good of a guitarist, though I knew I could hold my own.
I am a very lucky guy. I've had a great career and I still get to do it and get to hang out with all these wonderful people. It's just a blast.
Lorne finally said, Do the Blues Brothers thing. The response was amazing. People went nuts.
My favorite moment of the whole thing was when John Belushi suggested that I get a hold of all the blues records I could so I could research the music.
They had been doing their Jake and Elwood Blues thing as a warm-up for the audience before the show, and the audiences loved it.
Anyone who knew Wilson had to deal with both sides.
I went from the really crude way we had of recording in Memphis to working with the top engineers and technologies in Los Angeles.
I'm totally in support of having single-family occupancy here in Oak Hill. I'm still trying to understand the rest of this.
I believe in technology going forward. I do like to work with an engineer, but I know how to run Pro Tools, and I have a system in my own studio.
I'm one of those guys who likes to piddle around in the garage and fix stuff.
My ears won't fool me. Even when I do a session on digital, we still warm it up somewhere in the process, in mastering or mixing, running the signal through some tubes somewhere.
I had been raised on country and western in Missouri. But gospel was great.
Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.