{"id":21241,"date":"2021-07-06T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T09:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21241"},"modified":"2021-07-01T09:52:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T13:52:31","slug":"steve-cropper-the-go-getter-gets-going-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/06\/steve-cropper-the-go-getter-gets-going-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Cropper: The Go-Getter Gets Going (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

With Cropper\u2019s buy-in to the idea, Tiven enlisted the skills of drummers, including ace session man Anton Fig. Cropper has long been friends with the South African-born precussionist. \u201cYou\u2019d know him from Saturday Night Live<\/i> and David Letterman\u2019s show,\u201d he says. But Fig also played drums in a later version of Booker T & the M.G.\u2019s, manning the drum throne originally occupied by Al Jackson, Jr., who died in 1975.<\/p>\n

And while Fire It Up<\/i> does feature vocals, those are provided by Roger C. Reale. Best known for his work as a hard-rocking punk pop artist, Reale recently oversaw the reissue of his late \u201870s recordings leading a band called Rue Morgue. The first of those records, 1978\u2019s Radioactive<\/i>, originally came out on Big Sound, a label whose staff included Tiven; that\u2019s how the two first came to work together. Tiven and Reale have remained in touch through the years, and Tiven suggested Reale \u2013 whose vocal talents display a soulful character \u2013 as the ideal vocalist for his revived project with Steve Cropper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jon asked me if I wanted to work on these tracks,\u201d Cropper recalls, \u201cI said, \u2018Well, we\u2019re going to need a singer.\u201d When he heard some of Reale\u2019s work, his reaction was immediate: \u201cWoah; he\u2019s good,\u201d Cropper said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As the guitarist explains, Fire It Up<\/i> was completed remotely. \u201cThe trick to it was very simple: Tiven has a studio in his house, and I’m five minutes from the studio,\u201d Cropper says. Reale, meanwhile, was 1100 miles away in Boston. \u201cI still haven\u2019t met him,\u201d Cropper says. \u201cHe will not fly out here to Nashville until he gets his vaccination. He\u2019s waiting now to get it.\u201d But Reale was able to complete all of his vocal recordings in Boston. \u201cAll of the vocals that Roger did were done on an iPhone,\u201d Cropper says. \u201cThe engineer processed them so they sounded like they\u2019re supposed to, even before we put them on ProTools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nashville\u2019s COVID-19 restrictions have been less stringent than those in some other parts of the country, so Cropper could get in his car and drive to the studio. \u201cI’d just come down to RCA, and we finished mixing the album,\u201d he says. Fire It Up<\/i> is book-ended with a set of \u201cBush Hog\u201d instrumental tracks that hearken back to the glory days of Booker T & the M.G.\u2019s; the rest of the album features Reale\u2019s vocals leading the way, and sparring with Cropper\u2019s lead guitar work.<\/p>\n

Referring to the original recordings from ten years ago, Cropper says, \u201cWe had some pretty good music out there.\u201d And while he and Tiven didn\u2019t have any participial artist in mind when they wrote those pieces, they provided a solid basis for Fire It Up<\/i>. \u201cMost of them, I\u2019d forgotten about,\u201d Cropper admits. \u201cSome of the titles were my ideas, but a lot of them were Jon\u2019s and Roger\u2019s ideas.\u201d As Reale would finish each recording, he\u2019d send it to Tiven and Cropper, soliciting their feedback. Cropper was impressed: \u201cI said, \u2018Right on! Keep going! Send another one!\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the basic tracks from 2011 weren\u2019t as raw as they might have been. That owes in large part to Steve Cropper\u2019s long-established method of songwriting. \u201cWhen I was producing hits, I would give the advice to people: \u2018I hear a song finished<\/i>. I have to work with it in its raw stages, but I hear it finished and on the radio.\u2019\u201d So his method of constructing a recording isn\u2019t really exploratory in nature; instead it involves working toward what he hears in his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s what I did, and that’s what I do,\u201d Cropper says. \u201cA lot of artists, believe it or not, cannot hear a song finished. They just take it for what it’s worth, and they value everything based on that. Their opinion of it is based on what they hear, and I can’t blame them for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

An old hand at making successful albums \u2013 he\u2019s produced dozens \u2013 the 79-year-old Cropper made the transition quite easily from the days of analog tape to modern-day methods, employing Apple loops, ProTools software, and digital file swapping. But he\u2019s modest about the ways in which his skills apply to the music industry of 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know,\u201d he says. \u201cI lost the industry a long time ago. Some things I’ve got, some things I don’t. I don’t know the whole business anymore.\u201d He says that for many years, he kept his finger on the pulse of the music scene through his friendships with radio deejays. And he clearly still pays attention: with some pleasure, Cropper notes that he\u2019s hearing deejays on the radio more than he did a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Cropper\u2019s approach to the guitar has never been flashy; instead, he crafts memorable, melodic guitar melodies that stay with the listener long after the song is over. That\u2019s a quality that remains on display on Fire It Up<\/i>. And Cropper\u2019s philosophy of music is as straightforward as his playing style. \u201cI don’t try to do music over the public’s head,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m not saying that only simple stuff works, but it sure does help.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that he treats music the same way he treats fishing. \u201cFish are not going to bite on the same lure in the same place every day,\u201d he says with a knowing smile. \u201cYou’ve got to change it up some. Change that lure! A good fisherman will tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in mid-March, Cropper remained circumspect regarding the possibility of post-pandemic live dates in support of Fire It Up<\/i>. \u201cI’m sure the record company’s going to expect me to get out and play some,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd if we can’t do it live, we’ll have to do it by Zoom. We’ll see what happens.<\/p>\n

But he recognizes that the pent-up demand is there for live music. \u201cWill the large audiences come back? I don\u2019t know; I have no prediction for that,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut I know that the fans right now are very eager to get back to dancing and listening to music. I think they’re getting tired of just listening to stuff. They want to see the artist perform, and they’re eager to sing along, dance, whatever they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One \u2026 With Cropper\u2019s buy-in to the idea, Tiven enlisted the skills of drummers, including ace session man Anton Fig. Cropper has long been friends with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21245,"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-21241","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\/21241","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=21241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21246,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21241\/revisions\/21246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}