Remembering Steve Cropper / Playwright Tom Stoppard
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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.
What was Steve Cropper's impact on soul music?
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.
I've been loving you Too long To stop now
And you want to be free. My love is growing stronger. As you become a habit to me. And loving you. Too long. I don't want to stop now.
Otis Redding, recorded in 1965.
How did Steve Cropper become a member of Booker T. and the MGs?
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. She asked him if the music in Memphis played a big part in his life when he was growing up there.
I grew up kind of on the Grand Ole Opry in the kind of Louisiana hayride kind of stuff.
Well, you know, what's really interesting about that is that you ended up playing mostly with black singers and playing in integrated bands. Right. How did you get exposed to black music after being used to Grand Ole Opry stuff?
Well, that was really the thing. When I got a chance to have my own radio and start turning the knobs, I found one night on WDIA black spiritual music. I'd never heard it before, and it just blew me away, the feeling, the excitement of it, and that sort of thing. I grew up in the Church of Christ, which is in those days basically a cappella church. uh... singing uh... and i was very used to religious music and i liked it but here was a new twist on it it had a beat and it was you know what we call funky now and that was really i think the the turning point in my interest in music there was a music there that i really couldn't get enough of and i just loved it when you started when you started playing guitar did you have a sense of where you could fit in musically into the kind of music that you liked most
Well, I think so. Definitely was spiritual because it was a rhythm thing. It wasn't so much lead and all of that. I really wasn't all that interested in intricate kind of music from a classical standpoint or from a country fiddle and that sort of thing. I liked listening to it, but I didn't have any desire to get an instrument and try to copy that. I never really was a lead player. I never tried to be a lead player. I've been lucky enough to have played a few solos on some great artist records. but really I'm a rhythm man, and my best forte, I think, is capturing the feel of a song during its inception in the studio. I think that's where I'm best. Even though people fly me in all over to play on their records and overdub, I think they would be better using me on the ground floor, you know, as a building block rather than as a cherry on the cake.
You had your first hit with a band called The Marquise. And it wasn't long after that that you became affiliated with Stax Records. You became a guitarist in the house rhythm section. You became a producer. You became a songwriter with Stax. Floor sweeper. Yeah.
Tape copier and editor.
How did you get affiliated with Stax?
Well, it started, Charles Axton, the tenor player, and the funny story about Charles Axton.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:13
2
What was Steve Cropper's impact on soul music?
0:13–1:27
3
How did Steve Cropper become a member of Booker T. and the MGs?
1:27–7:43
4
What notable songs did Steve Cropper co-write?
7:43–8:38
5
How did Steve Cropper's upbringing influence his music career?
8:38–15:11
6
What are the highlights of Tom Stoppard's career?
15:11–16:14
7
What themes are explored in Tom Stoppard's plays?
16:14–21:17
8
How did Tom Stoppard's background shape his writing?
21:17–46:50
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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