Date: November 24, 2013
A trick of fate launched Otis Redding’s career. He was, in 1962, working with a flamboyant guitarist named Johnny Jenkins, who had some unused studio time at Stax Records. Up to the mic stepped Redding. Read More
Date: November 18, 2013
Blues Brothers 2000, the belated sequel to 1980’s blockbuster Blues Brothers, wouldn’t be as heralded as the first — and that’s in no small way because original star John Belushi was gone. Yet, Steve Cropper might just have better memories the second time around. Read More
Date: November 16, 2013
Booker T. and MGs were pioneers of funky-cool soul and Civil Rights-era forward thinking. But it might not have happened, but for a chance meeting at a local Memphis record shop. Read More
Date: November 15, 2013
Steve Cropper, the ace producer and sideman at Stax Records, ended up playing with most every one he’d ever admired over the years — except for one person: Tina Turner.
“I’ve always said that; I’ve said it for years,” Cropper admits in a talk with Michael Berry. embedded below. “I get asked: ‘Who is the artist that you didn’t get to work with that you would have loved to have worked with?’ Read More
Date: November 12, 2013
Otis Redding’s 1965 No. 11 R&B hit “I Can’t Turn You Loose” was aptly named, considering that he refused to leave for his next show until guitarist Steve Cropper laid down the song’s famous lick. Read More
Date: November 12, 2013
You know Steve Cropper from his legendary work with Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, William Bell, Johnnie Taylor — and, of course, with Booker T. and the MGs. His beginnings with the Stax Record label, however, were decidedly less glamorous. Read More
Date: November 12, 2013
Pop culture tells us that the Steve Cropper-produced smash “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” stands as Otis Redding’s final recording. Not so, says Cropper. In fact, he and Redding had been sure for sometime before the scalding soul singer’s death that this Read More
Date: November 12, 2013
Steve Cropper has had several signature moments in popular music — as a sideman, composer and producer on so many key Stax sides, and as a member of both Booker T. and the Read More
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