{"id":21239,"date":"2021-07-05T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T09:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21239"},"modified":"2021-07-06T07:42:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T11:42:10","slug":"steve-cropper-the-go-getter-gets-going-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/05\/steve-cropper-the-go-getter-gets-going-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Cropper: The Go-Getter Gets Going (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ask serious music fans to name a tasteful guitarist, and inevitably Steve Cropper\u2019s name is going to come up. As a studio musician, Cropper\u2019s work is part of the center of gravity of innumerable recordings that came out of Memphis\u2019 Stax Records in the 1960s. With Booker T & the M.G.\u2019s, Cropper was responsible for some of the era\u2019s most enduring instrumental music, from 1962\u2019s \u201cGreen Onions\u201d to the quartet\u2019s immortal Beatles tribute McLemore Avenue<\/i> to many other singles and albums. Now in 2021, he returns with what he likes to think of as his \u201csecond\u201d solo album, Fire It Up<\/i>.<\/p>\n

More often than not, Steve Cropper has applied his talents to collaborative works: his co-writes with Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd and others helped gain those artists the fame they richly deserved. His songwriting prowess and memorable guitar licks put Memphis at the forefront of soul and pop. And the unassuming guitarist has long been a key part of the Blues Brothers Band, bringing classic sounds to audiences across the globe.<\/p>\n

Less well known, though, are the clutch of albums Cropper has made under his own name. Although he was a well-established artist by the very early \u201860s \u2013 and a household name among musicians \u2013 Cropper didn\u2019t step out for a solo turn until 1969\u2019s With a Little Help From My Friends<\/i>, an album on Volt (Stax\u2019s \u201csister\u201d label). That well-received set of reinterpretations of popular songs he helped create was joined that same year by Jammed Together<\/i>, a guitar slinger\u2019s triple-headliner extravaganza featuring Cropper alongside label mates Albert King (bringing the blues) and Roebuck \u201cPops\u201d Staples (delivering the gospel-flavored textures).<\/p>\n

But once the 70s began, fans of Cropper\u2019s lean, economical yet indelible guitar work would have to satisfy themselves primarily with hearing him on other people\u2019s records. As a session musician and producer, Cropper remained busy as ever, working with a dizzying array of big names including Ringo Starr, Levon Helm, Rod Stewart, Elton John Band drummer Nigel Olsson, Richie Havens, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Harry Nilsson, Neil Sedaka, John Lennon and many others.<\/p>\n

Cropper got into acting \u2013 most often portraying a stylized version of himself \u2013 in the 1980s comedy The Blues Brothers<\/i>. That gig led to the popular live touring band of the same name. And in the wake of the movie\u2019s success, Cropper finally made a pair of solo albums, 1981\u2019s Playin\u2019 My Thang<\/i> and Night After Night<\/i> (1982). But when those albums are mentioned these days, Cropper tends to play down their importance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve had other albums out for different reasons,\u201d he says, going on to explain how those early \u201880s records came about. \u201cThere was a guy \u2013 a friend of mine \u2013 who really thought I could sing,\u201d he says with a laugh. (Then and now, Cropper is known for his guitar playing, production skills, songwriting chops and other enduring qualities. He\u2019s almost never thought of as a vocalist.) Cropper\u2019s friend encouraged him to make a vocal record.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I did,\u201d Cropper says. \u201cIt turned out pretty good, but I was learning how to sing then. I never was a singer<\/i> singer, and I knew that, performance-wise. I could sing in tune musically, but so what? I don’t have the voice that most people have.\u201d With great self-knowledge, he emphasizes the takeaway from the experience of making those records. \u201cWhat the audience has accepted is when I sing something that I’ve written, like \u2018In The Midnight Hour,\u2019 \u2018Knock on Wood,\u2019 or \u2018Dock Of The Bay,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cAnd they accept that, because they like to hear the writer \u2026 no matter how bad the writer is.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after releasing Night After Night<\/i>, Cropper pretty much hung up the microphone and focused on following the famous advice given to him years before by Sam Moore (and again in the \u201880s by John Belushi): \u201cPlay<\/i> it, Steve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cropper has remained engaged with numerous production and sideman projects, both in the studio and onstage. And in 2008 and again in 2011, he collaborated on albums with former Rascals keyboardist-vocalist Felix Cavaliere. The co-billed releases Nudge it Up a Notch<\/i> and Midnight Flyer<\/i> featured the duo working together on songwriting and playing, with Cavaliere handling the lead vocals.<\/p>\n

Even before those projects began, Cropper had been engaged in regular writing sessions with longtime friend Jon Tiven. After working as a music journalist in the early \u201870s, Tiven would go on to a long and creatively fertile popular music career: he\u2019s played on albums by the Rolling Stones and Major Lance, produced Van Duren, B.B. King, Alex Chilton, Don Covay, Frank Black, Graham Parker and many others. He was a member of the Jim Carroll Band and (with Al Franken) the Tom Davis Experience. On his own and with others, Tiven has written more than 400 songs. Those are but a sampling of his myriad credits.<\/p>\n

Like Cropper, these days Tiven lives in Nashville, Tennessee. As Cropper recalls, \u201cwe were in the middle of writing every week when Felix came around.\u201d Cavaliere asked to contribute to some of the songs Tiven and Cropper had written; that conversation led to the two albums.<\/p>\n

But the writing sessions yielded some material that for one reason or another didn\u2019t interest Cavaliere. \u201cHe said, \u2018I don\u2019t want to finish these songs; I\u2019m not going to sing them,\u201d Cropper recalls. So the partly-completed tunes \u2013 many created using Apple loops as a tool \u2013 were set aside. \u201cI just assumed they would be lost and gone,\u201d he says<\/p>\n

Fast-forward nearly a decade. \u201cIt was Jon\u2019s idea to bring these tracks back to life,\u201d Cropper explains. The best bits from those decade-old sessions would form the basis of Fire It Up<\/i>, an album that the guitarist thinks of as his \u201cfirst proper album\u201d since 1969.<\/p>\n

Cropper chuckles as he recalls the phone call that reignited the project. \u201cTiven called me and said, \u2018I know you don’t want to make another record, but I’ve got all these tracks you did.\u2019\u201d The basic recordings already featured Cropper playing both rhythm and lead guitar parts. Multi-instrumentalist Tiven overdubbed bass guitar, keyboards and horns onto the decade-old unfinished tracks.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a> \u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask serious music fans to name a tasteful guitarist, and inevitably Steve Cropper\u2019s name is going to come up. As a studio musician, Cropper\u2019s work is part of the center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62,69],"tags":[2686,4025,2044],"class_list":["post-21239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-soul","tag-jon-tiven","tag-roger-c-reale","tag-steve-cropper","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21251,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21239\/revisions\/21251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}