Gary James' Interview With
Steve Cropper



Simply put, Steve Cropper is one of Rock music's all time greats. Not just as a guitarist, but as a songwriter and producer. He co-wrote "Knock On Wood" with Eddie Floyd, "In The Midnight Hour" with Wilson Pickett and "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" with Otis Redding. He's part of what is referred to as the Stax sound. And the artists he's worked with; Otis Redding, John Belushi, Wilson Pickett, Sam And Dave, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and the list goes goes on and on. What an honor to talk to Steve Cropper!

Q - As I look back on your life, the one thing that struck me is how fortunate you were that your parents made the move from Missouri to Tennessee.

A - Absolutely.

Q - How different would your life have been if that move had not taken place?

A - Well, it wouldn't have been as musical, that's for sure. I was listening to the music and I loved it up there. I grew up on a farm. So, I grew up on what they call in Kentucky, Bluegrass. It was just Country music to us. It was that same kind of up-speed, fill-in stuff. They called it Bluegrass. They'd done very well with it. Well, Missouri kind of let it go. They got more into it as the years went more into Rock 'n' Roll. But for me to be dropped into Memphis, Tennessee at the age of ten years old was like going to Disney World, I got to tell you. It was quite a shock. I remember going back and I was asleep in the back seat and my Dad said, "Son, you better get up and see this." It was crossing the Mississippi. It was the widest river I'd ever seen or any of us had ever seen. So it was a good time growing up in Memphis, Tennessee. Very lucky. I started, I think I was in the fourth grade. I went to school for half of the fourth grade year and then to another school for the second half. The reason for that is we were waiting for a house to be built. So we stayed in what they call a condo now until the house was built and we moved over to the other place. From the sixth grade 'til a few years ago was my good buddy Donald "Duck" Dunn. Some people say, "You went back that far?" And I said, "Yeah, we started playing all these sports and met and had a great time in the sixth grade!" (laughs) Way before music. We just happened to love it because our buddies were all into it. There's a whole history there that we'll get into sometime which really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this tour (Rock And Soul Revue Tour with Dave Mason). (laughs) There's a story line there as to how it happened and why it happened and all sorts of stuff.

Q - I'm just a few questions away from asking you about this current tour of yours with Dave Mason.

A - Okay.

Q - Would a record label like Stax have happened in Missouri? It had to be in Memphis, didn't it?

A - It had to be. Yeah. It was all sort of not by design. It was a lot of luck involved obviously. I thing Estelle Axton, who was the sister and co-owner of Stax Records, she was the Ax of Stax, she loaned Jim Stewart, her brother, the money to get this property to start the studio that she had to have a record shop. She wanted it in South Memphis basically and that's what we did. We ate and breathed Rhythm and Blues. That's what we did and I'm so glad. In school I grew up on all that Rock 'n' Roll and Rockabilly and the Elvis stuff. I became friends with a lot of guys who worked for him. I got to meet him and be around him too, which I'm not sure influenced any of the career stuff we did, but it didn't hurt! (laughs) I mean, we were still around music. We grew up doing sock hops and they called 'em that because they didn't want the street shoes or tennis shoes on the basketball courts and that's where they would hold the dances and they called 'em sock hops as you would well know. You've been writing for forty years. You know that.

Q - That's right.

A - That was the reason for sock hops. We got to do a lot of those. I got to see a lot of local bands and I knew how to handle that when we put a band together.

Q - And when The Beatles came along, Brian Epstein advertised The Beatles as being "In Concert," something that was previously reserved for Classical musicians. Then all the Rock 'n' Roll bands were billed as "In Concert." Did you know that?

A - Well, not really, but I knew him (Brian Epstein). He came over and spent a couple of weeks with us, trying to figure out if I was going to produce one of The Beatles' next albums or not at Stax. He was not happy with security. I'm saying, "You don't have to worry about that in Memphis, Tennessee. You're not going to have a thousand kids out there trying to break in. It's just not going to happen." He went back and called me and said, "Well, would you mind coming up to New York? We'd feel a lot safer in New York." I said, "If I need to, as long as we cut it at Atlantic." He said, "We'll work that out." Then he called me back about a week or two later and said, "Steve, we might have to wait on the next project because this one's pretty much finished." (laughs) So, a lot of time went by. It gave them time to finish an album.

Q - What album was it that you were supposed to produce?

A - Well, it was the one that had "Taxman" on it. I forget the name of it. Great album. As I heard it and looked back on it, I'm so glad I wasn't brought in as producer 'cause it would've changed. It would've been different. This album is so great. (laughs)

Q - That album is "Revolver".

A - That is the album, right.

Q - I don't understand that concern about security.

A - I don't either.

Q - You had guards at Stax, didn't you?

A - We had that and where we had them staying belonged to one of the local guys. It was on a corner, a brick wall and a big high fence. They couldn't totally surround it. It was on the corner. Totally safe. I think the guy who lived there was the manager of the then Memphis Hilton. He volunteered his house for as long as they wanted to stay there. Perfectly secure. But that was our idea and he (Brian Epstein) didn't think so. He didn't want The Beatles staying in a house. He'd rather have them twenty floors above the street I guess. I don't know. We never did get into that. I said, "You'll be totally safe here, I promise you. I know it will be safe."

Q - Did a lot of fans hang around the outside of Stax Records?

A - Never. (laughs) And the other thing was it wasn't any kind of command, but nobody was allowed in on sessions. If we were recording, nobody was allowed back there. We had a few people. I got permission to have John Fogerty sit in on a session one time. They put a chair right beside me for him to sit there. (laughs) Basically don't move. That was when he first got started. That's so funny. There were a few other people allowed in, but you just couldn't do that. We had a lot of fans that would have come in from all over the world. I'd pick 'em up at the airport and they'd say, "When are we going to hear that good Stax music?" And I'd say, "You're probably not going to." We were making it, but nobody was hearing it. Nobody in the local bands played it because they hadn't heard it on the radio yet. (laughs) And that's kind of the way things went down. Sort of a kept secret I guess. By the time Memphis radio picked up on the hits, they were already hits on the charts and they were forced to play them.

Q - Did Brian Epstein ever offer to manage you?

A - No. He got his reputation way after that, if there was any negative side to his reputation. I mean, he was just as nice as he could be. I remember James Fox came over one time, asking us to do music for a film. I know he was there a good week. Great guy. Those guys were just super. I really got along with Brian. I thought he was fine in all the conversations and everything. The Beatles, when they came and performed in Memphis, a local DJ, and I still have a copy in a safe somewhere, a little quarter inch recording of it, they asked The Beatles about coming to Memphis and I think Ringo answered the question, "Did you guys have any thoughts about coming to Memphis and recording?" Ringo said, "Well, yeah. We did. We always wanted to cut at Stax Records."

Q - So, The Beatles didn't get to record at Stax Records, but you did get to record with a couple of the guys, didn't you?

A - I worked with everyone of 'em except Paul. Paul and I have met several times. Every time he says, "You know Cropper, you and I have to do something." (laughs) We never did get around to it. But I played on Ringo's first album, on some of his hits and I played on John Lennon's "Rock And Roll" album. I played behind George for the Bob Dylan birthday bash up in Madison Square Garden. But I never physically played with Paul in the studio. I've been in the studio when he was mixing. I did that one time, if there's any claim to fame in that. (laughs) I think he was mixing at Wally Heider (Studio) in L.A. "Listen To The Man". Somebody came over and said, "You know Paul is in the studio and he would like you to come over when you have time and say hello. He heard you were recording." I was doing another project. So, I went over and said hello. He was with Linda. She was there with him.

Q - What was it like to record with John Lennon in the studio? A fast worker?

A - Well, he was great. That too. They knew what they wanted to do. John came over to me and said, "Would you mind staying after the session? I've got something I want to show you." I said okay. So, it was just he and I in the room. He showed me some riff and said, "I always thought it would be great for Booker T. And The MGs." He showed me the riff. I'd go home and so a version with my band at TMI. This is after Stax. I sent his office a copy of it. Then I actually heard it on the jukebox one time a year later. I said, "What is that?" (laughs) It was the flip side of one of his records. But the song on the album I think was called "Beef Jerky". But that was a riff that he had come up with that he had showed me that he thought might be good for Booker T And The MGs.

Q - Rolling Stone ranked you as the 39th Best Guitarist Of All Time. What does that kind of recognition mean to you? Did you get to meet the other guitarists on the list? I'm talking about people like Hendrix.

A - Oh, yeah. When they first came out with that list I was right next to Bo Diddley. He was my favorite guitar player at the time. I grew up with him, learning his stuff, which was pretty simple, and Lowman Pauling from The Five Royales. I thought the use of what Lowman Pauling was doing, playing some hot licks here and there and played rhythm most of the time, would adapt to recording a lot better, and it did. I used that kind of formula and developed a sound that everybody liked. Just one guitar player. I'd tell everybody there's a reason for that. They couldn't afford a second guitar player in those days. (laughs) So you had to sort of do both. And the way I did it is when I played a lick to finish something the singer had just sung, I went back to rhythm so quickly you didn't even miss the rhythm. You just heard the lick. Most people, the conscious mind wouldn't know the rhythm had stopped that few seconds or one bar or two bars or whatever for the guitar lick and just keep going. That seemed to be a good formula that worked.

Q - Was it easier for you to write a song when you were unknown or when you got famous was it harder?

A - Well, that's a tough question. When you're locked into a room, co-writing with somebody you don't think about that. Everything outside just goes away. In terms of turning in songs, I guess the pressure is on 'cause people are going to expect something else. You can't duplicate what you just did and it was always hard for me to copy my own work. It was easier for other people to do that, to make it similar. I had trouble with that. I'd just write songs to write songs. People say, "Do you still write?" Well, absolutely! I'd write more if I had a project. (laughs) I don't stockpile songs. I can't go to a library over here in my office and pull out five or six songs that might be good for a project. I don't have 'em. But if you give me a project I'll have three or four songs by noon the next day. (laughs) Totally suitable for the artist.

Q - When you say project, you mean someone calls and says, "I've got this movie coming out."?

A - Yeah. A TV show. A movie or an artist they want me to produce. If somebody calls and says, "Hey, send me five of your best songs," new songs, I don't have 'em. I haven't finished 'em. I've got hundreds of ideas, but I haven't finished 'em. It won't take me long to finish 'em.

Q - Do you have someone then who's out there actively searching for projects for you?

A - Absolutely not. No.

Q - That may be the problem.

A - Well, it's not a problem. But I do have publishers that go out and try to get the new stuff done, or the old stuff re-done, not the new stuff. They try to get new versions I should say of the old hits. They work pretty hard on that. Through the years, movies and commercials. That's what keeps everything alive I guess.

Q - Better than having money in the bank.

A - It didn't hurt. (laughs) It's as good as having money in the bank.

Q - It's better than having money in the bank! Having a hit song placed in a movie, that's where the money is today.

A - Yup. We have a lot of songs that get used in trailers. So, we got the airplay of TV and all and they're not actually in the movie soundtrack itself. They use 'em as promotion to get people's attention. The reason they're not in the movie is 'cause they would have to pay more money for it. It always boils down to money. But when they do use one, when a producer or director says "I've got to have this song in a movie," they pay for it and it gets done.

Q - But the money for the trailer is pretty good too, isn't it?

A - It's not bad if you get enough of 'em. I know of one song, I can't think of the other song, but I was listening to some Wal-Mart ads and I said they're using songs from the '60s. That's great. Recently I've received two checks. One from just playing on a track, "Hold On, I'm Comin'" and there was one for another one. I can't remember what it was. That's all well and good. That's from keeping records in the old days and filing with unions. I've have horn players call me and say, "Thank you Steve for keeping records," 'cause we get a check in the mail every time they use one of the original tracks. The difference is they got paid by today's scale. (laughs) It's still not great, but it's pretty good. So, they might get paid $200 or $300, they played on forty, fifty, sixty years ago that they probably got $15 or $20 for then if you broke it down. I think union scale in those days was somewhere around $46. Not very good. These days it's $300 or something.

Q - For how long in the studio?

A - Well, that's for a three hour session.

Q - Now, this tour you're doing with Dave Mason, did you two guys know each other before this tour?

A - Definitely knew each other. I've met him a couple of times. I met him in L.A. I don't know, thirty-five years ago (1983). He was a fella I liked and had a lot of respect (for). Then I ran into him when he was out with Fleetwood Mac and they were staying in the same hotel The Blues Brothers were. I went down to the bar and there was Dave. We hadn't seen each other in a few years and hit it off again. I don't think either one of us ever thought about playing together 'cause we're different styles of music. Whoever put this together, it was a great idea.

Q - Whose idea was it to tour together? Yours?

A - No. It wasn't my idea. We were presented the idea. "What would you think about doing this?" I said, "I don't know." (laughs)

Q - Why not?

A - Why not? There you go. I'm glad to be touring over here and not be going over to Europe. I've been doing that for thirty-one years solid.

Q - How does that show work? Who goes on first? Do you both come onstage together? Do you play each other's hits?

A - Well, we do, but I let Dave decide what he wanted to do. He decides he wants to start with this one and go into that one. I said okay, that's what we'll do.

Q - So, you both walk on together?

A - Yeah. I think he comes out and introduces me. The first song we do is "Midnight Hour", which he sings. That's the first song I do when I do a show and I sing. Then we go into some Booker T stuff and then some other things on Stax and then we get into his things. He starts off with "Fantasy" and "Low Spark" and that gets everybody going 'cause they recognize those songs and we do another couple that I've done at Stax and then we do a couple of his and back to him and on and on. We keep going.

Q - I was going to ask you earlier, how long did it take you and Otis Redding to write "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay"?

A - Well, I don't know. It took me just a short time, maybe an hour or so in the afternoon to finish it. But, he started it in Sausalito and I should have investigated it then, but I didn't think about it much until way later in life. He could not have been talking about the ships. I always thought I watch the ships come in, I'm thinking of the Golden Gate Bridge and a ship or sailboat going under. But it wasn't that at all. He was in Sausalito. He didn't see any ships in Sausalito. What he was probably talking about was the ferries that came back and forth across 'cause he stayed in Bill Graham's boat house in Sausalito. When we were out, and I forget what year it was, with Neil Young, he came backstage and said, "I've always been wondering about that. You know I stayed at that boat house the week after he stayed there." (laughs) Really? So, Bill Graham, when he had Fillmore West, he would offer his star either to stay at his boat house or he'd put you in this place called the Jac-Tar Hotel. The band with Booker T, we played out there about three times and we would always use the Jac-Tar 'cause we liked staying in hotels. And he always offered his boat house.

Q - When you guys finished recording "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay", did either one of you guys say, "We've got a hit song here!"?

A - Absolutely. Both of us did. A lot of people say it's the last thing we recorded. We recorded about two weeks before he passed away, but it was unfinished. We both knew it needed something. After each session we'd pull out "Dock Of The Bay" and play it 'cause we knew it was a hit with "Dock Of The Bay". We thought we did. We didn't know anything. We just thought it was the better one that we had done. It was more like what we had been looking for, for years. He and I had agreed that it needed something, but it didn't need strings. We arrived at we might use backgrounds. That might be good. He said, "Oh, man, that's a great idea. Let's do backgrounds." I said, "Well, we could call somebody in, but right after your project I'm doing the Staple Singers. I guarantee they're more than happy to sing on it." He said, "Okay. Let's do that. Let's get the Staple Singers on it," which would've been a great idea. Down in Tunica, Mississippi at one of the casinos, we were doing a tribute to Elvis' drummer and guitar player. The Jordanaires were on the show and a guy came backstage and said, "I hear you're doing 'Dock Of The Bay'. Do you mind if we come out and sing with you?" I said, "Man, that would be fantastic!" So I got to hear it with good background singers. So, I was overdubbing the guitar licks and just setting up to do it. The last time I saw him he popped his head into the control room and said, "I'll see you Monday." And I went ahead and set up and did the guitar licks and of course he passed away that Sunday. That was Friday afternoon I guess it was. Then they said, "We gotta get Otis' record out real soon," when Atlantic called from New York. I said, "You gotta be kidding." They hadn't even found it (the plane) yet. We knew the plane went down on Sunday and they got some of The Bar-Kays out, but Otis and the pilot, they hadn't been found yet. They didn't find 'em 'til that Friday morning. He went down on Sunday the 10th. I knew it wasn't finished. What am I going to do? So, I got the idea from him. It sounds like dead crows on the out-takes before that, trying to make seagull sounds. He was wanting to hear the seagulls. So, I called a friend of mine. They were a jingle company. I asked a friend of mine, Jimmy Gaines, a very famous producer now; he was the engineer over there, and I asked him, "You got any soundtrack records?" He said, "Man, that's what we're in the business of doing!" I said, "Do you have any ocean waves and sea gulls?" He said, "Absolutely!" I said, "I'll be right over," and he played 'em for me. I said, "Can you run 'em off for me on tape? We'll make a loop." And that's what I did. So, I would say "Dock Of The Bay" was mixed on six track. I had the seagulls on one and the waves on another. When I found a hole I wanted I'd bring that up and hear seagulls. I was trying with the electric guitar to keep it in there to fill it in. I was trying to mix seagull sounds with little trills on the guitar, the little licks I did on that electric. It worked okay. It sounded good. So, we got 'em in there and people liked 'em. The main thing was to keep 'em down so they didn't overshadow the rest of the song, but it did fill it out.

Q - The saddest thing in the world, besides Otis' passing, is knowing that he didn't live to see "Dock Of The Bay" go to number one.

A - You're exactly right. He didn't get to enjoy it.

Q - What was John Belushi like to work with in the studio and on the road?

A - Extremely professional is the best way I can put it. Hard worker. Extremely professional. They told us when we started, "We can't make you rich, but we'll keep you laughing." I think Aykroyd said that with Belushi right there. "We're not going to make you rich, but we'll keep you laughing," and that's true. When we did the soundtrack it was serious. When we played that first album, "Briefcase Full Of Blues", we did nine dates. I re-established that with Aykroyd the other night. I said we did nine dates, not seven. We did a little more than a week. It was Steve Martin when had the hit record "King Tut". It was like number one in the nation on Billboard. And we opened for him. They recorded four of the nine shows and of those four they pieced together and did over-dubs and mixed "Briefcase Full Of Blues", which I think at the time went double or triple Platinum. Of course through the years it's gone more than that. That was the thing Atlantic used and Danny and all of 'em to put more pressure on Universal to shoot this movie script that he had an idea for. There they had success happen both ways. I think Belushi had just come off of Animal House and a couple of other hits. So, he was a pretty big box office draw at the time. So, they felt pretty safe. And the only thing Danny had to fight for was the band being the band. Universal immediately said, "Nope. We're going to get actors and teach 'em how to play music." Danny said, "No, you won't. We're gonna use the band or we won't make the movie." (laughs) I remember him coming and telling me that. He said he bit his lip 'til blood came out, "But I got you guys the movie." He said, "The way I've written it, you don't even have to act. You just say the line and it'll work great!" And it did!

Q - For Steve Cropper, has your life been more about luck or hard work or maybe a combination of?

A - It's just fun. I always use the same phrase that Duck Dunn used in the studio. He'd be tuning up and everybody would be getting ready and he'd say, "We're not gonna make work out of this, are we boys?" (laughs)

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