Steve Cropper died, the Stax guitarist who gave rhythm to the Blues Brothers
A columnist of the Memphis Sound, he founded Booker T. & M.G.'s and wrote "(Sittin' on) The Dock of The Bay" with Otis Redding. How? "Connecting the dots"
by Francesco Prisco
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There is an unwritten law that applies to all electric guitarists: if you play a solo, whether you know it or not, you owe a debt to Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. Similarly, we can say that all rhythm guitarists of the world are unknowingly indebted to the Telecaster of Steve Cropper, who died at the age of 84 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The 'Colonel' - as his friends called him - was a pillar of Stax Records, the Memphis record label that revolutionised soul music in the 1960s. Because he was the guitarist of Booker T. & M.G.'s, the Stax backing band, those four guys (in addition to him were Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, Al Jackson on drums and of course Booket T. Jones on Hammond organ) who churned out Green Onions and above all determined the sound of immense artists like Otis Redding.
And in M.G.'s those compact guitar riffs, seemingly simple but above all full of substance, were the stuff of Steve Cropper's bag. Before he found himself in the late seventies - bearded and hiding behind a pair of Wayfarers - 'on a mission for God' in the Blues Brothers' crazy adventure. Where he would play on command: "Play it, Steve!"
Steve Cropper was born near Dora, Missouri, before moving with his family to Memphis in 1950. There he came into contact with gospel music, R&B and the nascent rock 'n' roll, starting to play guitar at the age of ten. His artistic career took shape in the late 1950s with the Royal Spades, a line-up that would later become The Mar-Keys. In 1961, the group reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 with the instrumental single Last Night, recorded at Satellite Records, the future Stax .
Cropper, then a mechanical engineering student at Memphis State University, had already started working at the record label as a salesman, quickly rising to become its sound engineer. The following year, in 1962, Booker T. & the M.G's were born and nothing was the same. No small detail: they are an interracial band, made up of two whites and two blacks, a punch in the face of Southern segregationists. There is the M.G.'s hand and the Colonel's guitar in Sam & Dave, Carla and Rufus Thomas, Wilson Pickett (In the Midnight Hour) and Eddie Floyd (Knock on Wood).
