David Bianculli

Nesper.

Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer.

For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Biancullo.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm David Bianculli.

Steve Cropper, the guitarist whose influential work for Stax Records in Memphis helped define soul music in the 1960s and 70s, died Wednesday in Nashville.

He was 84 years old.

Today, we listen back to an archive interview with Cropper.

As a member of Booker T and the MGs, the in-house rhythm section at Stax, Cropper played guitar on some of the greatest soul hits of the 60s.

Records by Carla and Rufus Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding.

Otis Redding, recorded in 1965.

Steve Cropper wasn't just a guitarist at Stax Records.

He also was a producer and a songwriter.

The number one R&B hits he helped write included Otis Redding's Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, Eddie Floyd's Knock on Wood, and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour.

Steve Cropper was 14 when he bought his first guitar and developed his style by listening to both country and rhythm and blues guitarists.

In 1962, when Cropper was doing an instrumental jam at Stax Records with organist Booker T. Jones and his band, the engineer hit record.

The resulting record, Green Onions, was a major hit.

Steve Cropper appeared in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers playing guitar and playing himself as Steve the Colonel Cropper.

In 1992, Booker T and the MGs were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Two years before that, Steve Cropper spoke with Terry Gross.