“HE BROUGHT THE VOLUME AND TONE KNOBS UP FULL, AND LEFT THEM THERE”

With his trusty Tele in hand, the man they call The Colonel remains a towering (six foot one, in fact) figure in the history of popular music. Steve Cropper’s soulful, spare and deeply musical guitar style was a cornerstone of the gritty ‘Memphis Soul’ sound of the 60s. As a member of the Stax label’s de facto house band, Booker T. & The MG’S, he appeared on countless 45s, playing on – and regularly co-writing – hits by soul giants. Later he’d find fame with a new generation, as a Tele-brandishing member of the band in cult

1980 movie The Blues Brothers.

Back in ’62 Booker T. & The MG’S cooked up their much-replicated hit instrumental Green Onions on the Stax studio floor while killing time between sessions. This infectious 12-bar blues in F was characterised by Booker T Jones’ burbling Hammond M3 organ, but also Cropper’s two-man approach to guitar. He supplies twangy-yet-warm bluesy lead lines and funky rhythm, creating a cool intro hook by countering

Bb/ the song’s F/ C structure with choppy, syncopated fragments of Bb, Eb

and F. In these early days, Cropper would run his Fender Esquire – the Telecaster’s single-pickup close ancestor – through a Fender Harvard 10-watt amp. Studio engineers, he maintains, love the Fender Telecaster for its clean signal. When Cropper graduated to the Tele, he put the pickup selector in middle position to blend the neck and bridge coils, brought the volume and tone knobs up full, and left them there. As with all the best players, his cultured, warm tone has always come from his hands.

When Sam And Dave shout ‘Play it Steve!’ in the middle of their 1967 classic Soul Man, it’s him they’re looking at. Cropper plays the intro

Bb, chords – G, F, C, D – using their D shapes, but for more control over the articulation he only uses the notes falling on his Tele’s G and high E strings: D/B (G string, 7th fret/e string, 7th fret); C/A (sliding the previous shape down to the 5th fret); F/D (up to 10th); G/E (to 12th) and A/F# (to 14th).

This elegantly simple and highly memorable motif is typical of the Cropper approach.

Part of Cropper’s appeal is this blend of pragmatism and instinctual feel for melody. He co-wrote and produced Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, writing the signature, G/G/D/D/G bass intro, then overdubbing the song’s sweet Tele lines and seagulls/ocean sound effects. Cropper later employed a foolproof, ‘follow-the-dots’ approach when working on Eddie Floyd’s Knock On Wood. Stuck for an intro, he thought back to In The Midnight Hour, the timeless soul side he had co-written with Wilson Pickett. Following the fret markers on his Tele, he reversed Midnight Hour’s intro chords (D/B/A/G/E) to come up with the new tune’s unmistakeable, yet strangely familiar, upwards progression (E/G/A/B/D/B).

These days this consummate, hugely influential musician favours a Telecaster copy custom made for him by Peavey. He’s 79, still gigs, and this year released a new solo album, Fire It Up. The Colonel marches on.

Steve Cropper’s twangy leads made him a pivotal figure in 60s soul music – the Tele being a key ingredient in The Colonel’s secret recipe