Steve Cropper
HE’S THE MAN WITH THE MAGIC TOUCH, THE TELE-WIELDING GROOVE MASTER WHOSE SIGNATURE STYLE SHAPED THE SOUND OF SOUL MUSIC FROM GREEN ONIONS TO THE BLUES BROTHERS AND BEYOND, AND WHOSE FANS INCLUDED THE BEATLES. “RHYTHM IS MY THING,” SAYS SOUL SURVIVOR STEVE CROPPER. “I LIKE TO GET PEOPLE DANCING AND ROCKING...”
As a member of Booker T & The MG’S, the man they call The Colonel helped define the classic 60s ‘Memphis Soul’ sound. His oft-imitated Telecaster sound powers countless hits on the legendary Stax label, he co-wrote classic tunes including Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay with Otis Redding and In The Midnight Hour with Wilson Pickett, and as a producer and player went on to work with greats such as John Lennon, Jeff Beck, John Prine and Rod Stewart. Now 79, Cropper’s back with new album Fire It Up, and offers TG a few pearls of wisdom gleaned from nearly six decades at the top...
Keep it simple, and play what you feel.
When I do a project, I try to keep everything as simple as possible, and it’s the same when I write. I try to keep it as close to ‘a long time ago’ as I can, too. Usually I’m playing single notes or two strings at a time. On [Sam & Dave’s] Soul Man, I just play those first two notes and the audience gets it immediately – they know what song’s coming. Sure it’s simple, but it’s got an identity. I always go back to what [Stax producer/engineer] Chips Moman told me to do. I said, ‘Chip I’ve got all these sessions to play on, what do
I do?’ He said, ‘Just play what you feel, if they don’t like it they’ll tell ya!’ They liked it, so I continued on. These days if I’m playing [lead] on somebody else’s music, they set the groove and I just I play by ear to what I’m hearing. That’s what I’ve always done.
Reading music is useful (to a point...)
I used to read band charts real quick but I haven’t done it in years. At Stax we were lucky, we got successful with our own hit records so we didn’t have to learn a lot of other people’s music, we just kept playing our own. But it can be good to have a sheet [music chart], even when overdubbing solo licks and fills. I like to have that to think what I would do off of the chord changes. It all depends – for some songs you know the key, so you go to that position on the neck where you play those solo licks in that key. For other songs, like Soul Man and Dock Of The Bay, you like to follow the changes when you’re playing the licks. Going back to some of the early jingle sessions I did, I’d be sitting in a room with 40 or 50 other musicians – string players, timpanists – and I’d open up the guitar music and it’d just be one giant clef in the middle of the paper where they’d written, ‘Play it Steve!’ I got a kick out of that, and so did the session musicians. I think they realised after a while that I wasn’t reading what they’d written for me, I’d just play what I was gonna play no matter what!
Leave room for spontaneity.
I like hearing a song for the first time, I don’t like having to work
something out, I really don’t. I like for it to surprise me. If I try to work out [a guitar part] the day or week before a session usually I can’t play it, or I forget it. I’d rather be spontaneous. Hearing something for the first time makes me play something I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
Get rhythm!
Rhythm is my thing. I like to get people dancing and rocking. You can’t do that playing all over the place. I just like to see people get up and dance. Even if they’re too old to dance they can still shake their booty in their chair! Out playing with Booker, our drummer was always watching the dancers, then on Monday morning in the studio he’d be setting the tempo to match what he saw the kids dancing to on the Saturday night. That’s where we went, and it worked. Some guitar players want to play over the top and impress people with that. Me, I want to play a groove, I want to play the same thing over and over, for three hours if I have to! I get off on it, I think it’s fun.
Always keep the audience in mind.
Good players are good players, and they bubble up to the top. There’s a lot of guys who had a lot of lessons, have a lot of dexterity and can do a lot of stuff, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to go over to the public. Some of them think it’s boring to play the same thing even twice. Well, get a hit record and play it different, and see what the audience’s reaction is! You better play it similar to the record or they’ll never forgive you. I’ve been to some concerts where the artist hasn’t played their hit. You want to grab them by the collars and shake and a say, ‘Man, that’s why these people are here! You’ve got a thousand people who’ve paid a hundred dollars apiece to be here, to hear you do your song’. It’s okay to play new stuff, but not just the new stuff. Mix it up, play the old hits too, until the new stuff starts hitting.
No second guitarist? No problem!
I have really listened through the years to the Stax songs when they’re on the radio, and when I was doing solo licks you don’t really feel the rhythm drop out. That’s because [MG’S drummer] Al Jackson was so good at what he did, but I played the licks melodically, still within the rhythm, even though I’m playing fills. Sometimes I’m stepping on the singer, but I’m really playing with him at the same time – in the mix I’m just under the vocals, almost as if the singer was playing another part to themselves. The other thing I do is, when a singer gets through I complete his melody with the guitar. If you listen to those records when I play a fill it’s usually in a hole where there’s no vocal. I’ll put something in, but drop what I’m playing rhythm-wise to do it.
Always keep listening.
I do listen to the radio a lot. I listen to [country star Jimmy Buffett’s station] Radio Margaritaville, they’ve got a lot of reggae; Bluesville, which is BB King’s station, and Bluegrass Junction too. Whatever they play I’m up for, and if I don’t like it I push the button and go somewhere else – there’s a lot of channels to pick from. I’m not as up on the pop stuff as much as I could be. I still like listening to the older stuff, I guess ‘cos I’m older and that’s what pleases me most.
Beware of getting pigeonholed.
Not long ago I did a bluegrass song [with singer Irene Kelley] called Anything To Help You Say Goodbye, and I’m really proud of it. I grew up listening to that kind of music in Missouri, but I didn’t play it. I moved to Memphis when I was very young and then listened to R’n’b and church music. Bluegrass was different groove for me, but that song became a hit. I’m kicking my butt for years because I know I can write songs, but when DJS see my name on a record and it’s not In The Midnight Hour or [Eddie Floyd hit] Knock On Wood, they don’t want to play it. I shot myself in the foot – it would’ve been better if I’d used a pseudonym, called myself Joe Shmoe or something!
It can be tricky to identify your own style.
The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is duplicate myself – I can’t do it. For everybody else to copy my style, or think they were, that didn’t seem to
be a problem. They were playing from their hearts but they were being inspired by somebody else, which is good. The Beatles told me they listened to a lot of Stax records, but I don’t recall ever hearing a Beatles song that sounded like a Stax record, or a Motown record. I was listening to them too, but I didn’t write any songs that had Beatles changes or harmonies. John [Lennon] had one of the first jukeboxes, and he told me I had three songs on there out of about 15 – Green Onions, In The Midnight Hour and (Sitting On) The Dock Of The Bay. I was very proud of that.
Sometimes one finger and a great ear is all you need.
When Otis wrote (Sitting On) The Dock Of The Bay, he wrote it with one finger, the guitar tuned to a chord [open E]. I played acoustic guitar on the original session On that particular song I was tuned standard, not to a chord, though on a lot of the songs I was. I’d tune to a chord to duplicate the way he would play it. Otis wasn’t a musician, though he did have a great ear.
On Teles, Peaveys, pickups and FX...
All the sessions I did with a Fendermade Telecaster I’d have the pickup switch in the middle position, using both pickups. But I’ve been playing this Peavey [custom, Tele-type guitar] for 10 years now, and the bridge pickup was so bright that when I put it in the middle position the brightness would take over. So I started playing off the neck pickup only. I even froze the switch with a piece of cardboard so I didn’t knock it. I couldn’t move it back now if I wanted to without a hammer! On most guitars the neck pickup’s so boomy, but this one really bites. I tried FX when it was the thing, and it didn’t work for me. The only thing I used years ago was a noise gate, because if you use an old Fender and there’s a hum in the lighting system it’ll pick it up. My Peavey doesn’t. I just plug into the amp, no noise gate at all.
A great tip for choosing your next electric guitar...
People ask me about this a lot, and it’s real simple: take the guitar and play it acoustically. If it sounds good unplugged it’ll definitely sound good if you get the right amp and plug it up. If it doesn’t sound good acoustically it’s probably never going to sound good electrically.
Be creative when mic’ing guitars – Jeff Beck would approve.
In most cases, guys’ll take a Shure mic and point it at the amp’s tweeter. As a producer, I like it pointed down to the speaker paper, cos that’s where the sound is for me. I don’t like it real bright. Sometimes we’d put a mic in front of the amp and one behind – the back’s muffled with almost no highs – and then you get a balance between the two to come up with the right sound. We did this with Jeff [on Jeff Beck Group, 1972]. He used my old Gibson Switchmaster, which is still in my garage, and we made a good album, but I think he just got better and better as a guitar player. And he’s one of those guys who gets in off the road, throws his guitar in the corner and doesn’t pick it up again until he goes back out. I’m the same way, but I’m not as good a guitar player! It was so long between shows with Booker T and the Blues Brothers that I’d have to relearn the songs each time. But it’s like an actor rehearsing a monologue – once you get the first line, the rest comes real easy.
You get old, if you’re lucky…
Some people say ‘I wish I was young again’, or ‘I wish I was this age or that age’, but I don’t really care about all that. I love my age, but I wish my hands were a lot younger! They won’t do what I ask them to do any more – there’s no dexterity like there used to be, and it bothers me some. It’s on my mind constantly, but I still try. I just do what I do, and the simple stuff is still simple, still easy to do. If I had studied like a lot of musicians do I’d probably be more frustrated than I am, but since
I didn’t, I’m fine...
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is duplicate myself – I can’t do it!”