Steve Cropper

He was the tenor player with the Marquise.

He was on the record last night and everything.

He came to me and he said, I hear you guys got a pretty good band.

He said, you know, I play saxophone.

I'd like to be in your band.

And I said, well, I'm not really interested.

I don't think we're interested in adding horns to the group.

And I said, how long have you been playing?

And he said, oh, I've been taking lessons for three months.

And I'm going, oh, yeah, great.

And somewhere in the conversation, he goes, oh, by the way, my mother owns a recording studio.

And I said, can you show up for rehearsal on Saturday?

And that is a true story.

I may stretch it a little bit, but that's the actual truth.

And we went out.

His uncle, Jim Stewart, the owner of Stax Records, had a little studio in his garage.

in Memphis, and we went out there and jammed around.

And then they moved from his garage to a little place out in Brunswick, Tennessee, where they had the satellite label.

And we would go out there every weekend and play and all that.

And, of course, Jim Stewart said, we never had a chance, we'd never make it.