Steve Cropper, one of the influential figures within the historical past of the electrical guitar and its music, died December 3. He was 84. Past his seminal work on guitar, Cropper was a songwriter and producer who helped form soul music within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s,

As a member of Booker T. & the MG’s, Cropper used an early-’50s Fender Esquire (plugged right into a Harvard amp) to report the famend instrumental “Inexperienced Onions,” which grew to become successful in 1962. He additionally composed and performed the repeating lick to Sam & Dave’s 1967 hit “Soul Man,” on which singer Sam Moore famously shouts, “Play it, Steve!” within the second refrain.

Cropper’s life was formed by a Silvertone guitar when he was 14. By then, his household had moved from rural Missouri to Memphis, the place he heard gospel, R&B, and early rock and roll on native radio. After an uncle let him maintain an outdated Gibson, the bug bit and he requested for a six-string of his personal.

“I keep in mind my mom setting apart $17 and alter, and after we ordered that Silvertone, they mentioned they might ship it for 25 cents,” he informed VG in 2024. “We informed them, ‘Neglect that!’ and I went to choose it up myself. If we’d needed to pay that additional quarter, I’d by no means have been a guitar participant,” he laughed.

Considered one of Cropper’s first inspirations was Lowman Pauling, who backed the ’50s R&B vocal group The 5 Royales, which Cropper watched on the Beverly Ballroom close to Memphis. “Bo Diddley had the rhythm and Lowman Pauling had the notes,” he informed VG’s Michael Dregni in 2011. Different formative influences had been Billy Butler, guitarist in organist Invoice Doggett’s combo, and Wayne Bennett, who backed Bobby “Blue” Bland.

As a scholar at Messick Excessive Faculty, Cropper bonded with schoolmate Charlie Freeman over their infatuation with guitars and music; with schoolmate Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, they shaped a gaggle known as Royal Spades, which then added saxophonist Charles “Packy” Axton, whose mom and uncle, Estelle Axton and Jim Stewart, operated Satellite tv for pc Data, which grew to become Stax in 1961.

As Cropper and his band had been gaining steam, Memphis grew to become a musical hotbed thanks partly to a recording studio run by Sam Phillips, whose Solar Data label was fostering the upstart careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Money, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, who had been making music that melded the blues trickling up from the Mississippi Delta with nation from Nashville and hillbilly songs from the Ozark Mountains. By ’61, Royal Spade had modified its identify to The Mar-Keys and its members had been backing singers at Stax. That yr, additionally they scored a million-selling #1 hit with an authentic instrumental, “Final Night time” (the tune having no guitar half, Cropper performed secondary organ). After morphing once more, they scored successful in ’62 as Booker T. & the MG’s with the instrumental “Inexperienced Onions,” propelled by Booker T. Jones’ organ melody and Cropper’s razor-sharp licks, then on a Telecaster, backed by Stax A-listers Al Jackson, Jr. on drums and Lewie Steinberg on bass.

At Stax, Cropper spent the ’60s backing star vocalists whereas co-writing Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” Wilson Pickett’s “Within the Midnight Hour,” and Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wooden.” All three had been #1 R&B singles; “Dock of the Bay” topped the pop chart, as nicely, and in ’69 gained Grammy awards for greatest R&B tune and greatest male R&B vocal efficiency. Cropper’s web site says that as head of artists and repertoire (A&R), he was concerned in nearly each report issued by the label from the autumn of 1961 by means of the tip of 1970, his guitar melding with rhythm sections to create a sound simply acknowledged on the radio.

Cropper launched two solo albums on Stax earlier than leaving the label over a disagreement with administration; the label closed in ’75. After opening a studio in Memphis, Cropper moved to Los Angeles that very same yr, the place he did session work earlier than becoming a member of Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars. He later collaborated with Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters, Roy Buchanan, Albert King, Robben Ford, and others. With Dunn, he was half the Blues Brothers Musical Revue, which backed comedians John Belushi and Dan Akroyd in what began as a skit/musical visitor on a 1978 episode of “Saturday Night time Dwell” however grew to become an earnest musical mission that recorded and toured till Belushi’s loss of life in 1982, and has re-formed with totally different personnel a number of instances since.

Cropper and the MG’s had been inducted to the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in ’92. In 2005, he was elected to the Songwriters Corridor of Fame. He launched albums with singer Felix Cavaliere in ’08 and ’10, and his ultimate album was 2024’s Friendlytown, as Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour. That yr, he appeared within the HBO documentary Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A.

On social media, Jimmie Vaughan recalled first listening to Cropper’s guitar.

“I used to be standing within the kitchen when out of my moms radio… got here the tune ‘Inexperienced Onions.’ I couldn’t consider what I used to be listening to and I needed to discover out who these musicians had been,” he mentioned. [Booker T. Jones’] organ and [Cropper’s] guitar modified my life! Steve Cropper was such an enormous affect on me. I used to be lucky to get to play with him on many events and name him my pal. I’ll endlessly be grateful to his years of affect on my musical profession and his friendship.”

“It ought to go with out saying that the passing of Steve Cropper, a real big, is a large loss,” mentioned ZZ Prime co-founder/guitarist Billy Gibbons. “He shall endlessly stay an excellent guitar hero and the privilege of figuring out him and dealing with him within the studio stays tops.”

Cropper is survived by his spouse and 4 kids. – Ward Meeker

This text initially appeared in VG’s February 2026 difficulty. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.