Top Ten (Again!)

Date: June 19, 2014

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You may think playing in a band is sometimes tough, but it’s nothing compared with being a session guitarist.

You’ll be playing other artists’ songs. You’ll be required to work very quickly. You often need to be able to interpret others’ ideas without your own ego coming into play. And you need to be super-versatile enough to change playing style and tone for whatever your paymasters demand. But also to have your own ideas to flesh-out the bones of a song-in-progress. It’s a lot to ask. As such, the best session guitarists just might be some of the greatest guitarists ever. Here are just 10 masters who made their mark, with tips and tricks on what it takes to deliver when that recording light turns red.

CHECK OUT THE LIST

French Film (1969) Shows FAME and STAX Sessions

Date: January 7, 2014

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This was filmed in Memphis and is dedicated to the blues. In the FAME studio in Muscle Shoals, Brook Benton records “She Knows What To Do For Me” with studio musicians including Barry Beckett on piano and Eddie Hinton on guitar. Later, in the STAX studio in Memphis, guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn work and rehearse daily with the stars of the blues; a sound laboratory which also includes organist Booker T. Jones, Isaac Hayes on saxophone, working on the instrumental part of a song by Carla Thomas.

WATCH THE WHOLE VIDEO HERE (Full-Screen Available)

“Remember Alex” Benefit

Date: January 7, 2014

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On March 11, 2014, Steve will join a stellar cast of artists, songwriters and musicians in a benefit concert at The Franklin Theater in Franklin, TN. The Alex LeVasseur Memorial Fund presents the 7th Annual Jeffrey Steele & Friends, an intimate evening with Jeffrey Steele, LoCash Cowboys, Chris Janson, The Shuggah Pies and other artists to be named soon. Read More

You’re Playing It Wrong

Date: December 20, 2013

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Somehow, it took hearing the Booker T. & the M.G.s’ classic “Green Onions” on a recent television commercial to come to the embarrassing realization that I’ve been playing Steve Cropper’s rhythm guitar figure wrong for, oh, about 40 years. But, that epiphany got me thinking that there might others in the same boat. Read More

One-Track Mind

Date: December 19, 2013

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Steve Cropper, of Booker T. and the MGs and Stax Records fame, has trouble picking any one moment on his upcoming star-studded project Dedicated as his favorite. So, we went further back into his legendary soul-soaked career. Read More

Otis Box Hits #2

Date: December 19, 2013

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The best-known songs on Disc One alone are more than enough to make the case for Otis Redding, and for this three-disc compilation of every single he ever released. But each of those hits, it seems, had a blistering B-side. Read More

Steve’s Fave Player

Date: December 4, 2013

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Steve Cropper has claimed his share of accolades as a guitarist, finishing at No. 35 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest and finishing at No. 2 on the Mojo list. Read More

“The rest is history”

Date: November 24, 2013

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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

‘We had more fun making that movie’

Date: November 18, 2013

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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

‘A complete coincidence’

Date: November 16, 2013

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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