Guitarist For Booker T & The MGs, Blues Brothers Was 84

Steve Cropper, the long-lasting and influential guitarist who starred with Booker T. & The MG’s, performed on many Stax Information hits and with The Blues Brothers band, died Wednesday in Nashville. He was 84.

His spouse, Angel Cropper, confirmed the information to The New York Instances however didn’t present a trigger. His longtime affiliate Eddie Gore informed the Related Press that he was with Cropper on Tuesday at a rehabilitation facility, the place the Rock & Roll Corridor of Famer had been after a current fall. 

A two-time Grammy winner, Cropper was the axman on Stax sides by such legendary acts as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and others. Also known as “The Colonel,” he performed on quite a few chart-topping soul hits and pop crossovers together with Redding’s posthumous basic “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” which he co-wrote together with and Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” by which he famously was known as out with “Play it, Steve!” earlier than one signature lick. John Belushi would repeat that phrase within the Blues Brothers’ cowl a decade later.

Born on October 21, 1941, on a farm in Dora, Missouri, Cropper acquired his first guitar at 14 and performed in teenager band The Royal Spades that will morph into The Mar-Kays. He already had accomplished session work for Solar Information and different labels when The Mar-Keys scored a Prime 5 pop and R&B hit in 1961 with “Final Night time,” on which Cropper performed organ however not guitar. The group recorded for Satellite tv for pc Information, which was threatened with a lawsuit by a California label and would later change into Stax Information.

Cropper would spend the subsequent decade at Memphis soul mainstay Stax because the go-to guitarist — together with working as an A&R man, engineer, producer and songwriter. He additionally co-penned and performed on such classics as Wilson’s “Within the Midnight Hour” and Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wooden” — which was remade as a disco monitor by Amii Stewart on went to No. 1 on the Billboard Scorching 100 in 1979.

In the summertime of 1962, Cropper teamed with keyboardist Booker T. Jones, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and bassist Lewie Steinberg for a Stax session. Throughout a jam session, label proprietor Jim Stewart ran a tape recorder, unbeknownst to the gamers. They appreciated after they heard and started engaged on a B-side that will evolve into the instrumental soul touchstone “Inexperienced Onions.”

Christened, Booker T. & The MG’s, the group’s debut album took that music’s title, and the one climbed to No. 3 on the Scorching 100, with the LP reaching the Prime 40. Cropper’s childhood pal Donald “Duck” Dunn changed Steinberg in 1964, and the group went on to file such memorable tracks as “Time Is Tight” and “Hold ‘Em Excessive” — each of which made the pop Prime 10 — and R&Bs hits together with “Boot-leg,” “Hip Hug-Her,” “Groovin’,” and plenty of others.

The group would wind down by the tip of the Sixties, and Cropper left Stax in 1970 to co-launch TMI aka Trans-Maximus, a recording studio and file firm. In the course of the first a part of the Me Decade, Cropper produced and performed on periods recorded at TMI or Ardent by the likes of Jeff Beck, Jose Feliciano, Poco, Yvonne Elliman John Prine and Tower Of Energy. He additionally produced John Cougar’s 1980 debut LP Nothing Issues and What If It Did.

The MG’s reunited briefly in 1977 to file the LP Common Language for David Geffen’s Asylum Information, with Willie Corridor changing Jackson, who died two years earlier. Not lengthy after that, Cropper and Dunn teamed with The Band alum Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars. Then got here a telephone name that will result in a brand new era of followers.

Saturday Night time Reside originals John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd have been on the lookout for musicians to again them for an SNL collective that will change into generally known as The Blues Brothers. Decked out in black fedoras, skinny ties and darkish shades “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues warbled their manner by way of “Soul Man” in an April 1978 episode, and a disco-tiring nation was transfixed.

Becoming a member of Cropper, Dunn and SNL musical director Paul Shaffer have been soul legends Matt “Guitar” Murphy, “Blue” Lou Marini, Tom “Bones” Malone, and Alan “Mr. Fabulous” Rubin. The group then opened a number of exhibits for warm comedian and “King Tut” hitmaker Steve Martin on the Common Amphitheater in Los Angeles, and people recordings have been repurposed for an LP.

Full of soul and blues covers from the earlier 20-plus years, Briefcase Filled with Blues stormed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It spawned a Prime 15 single in “Soul Man” and a Prime 40 follow-up in “Rubber Biscuit,” which featured Aykroyd as Elwood, effectively, rubbery semi-scatting. Pop and rock followers swooned, however blues aficionados stewed over the band and its success.

However that success quickly would draw Hollywood’s consideration.

John Landis, who had directed Belushi’s 1978 breakout film Animal Home, teamed with Aykroyd to put in writing The Blues Brothers, a wild, costly, stunt- and music-filled romp that Aykroyd co-wrote and Landis helmed. He and Belushi donned their matching black fits in a star-laden movie whose stunts virtually overshadowed its unimaginable musical performances. James Brown coated the gospel basic “The Outdated Landmark,” Aretha Franklin sang “Suppose,” Ray Charles performed “Shake a Tail Feather,” John Lee Hooker did a streetside model of “Increase Increase.” Within the finale, Cab Calloway led The Blues Brothers Band in a memorable, call-and-response tackle “Minnie the Moocher.”

The plot? An excuse for the efficiency and automotive chases/crashes. You need star energy? How concerning the likes of John Sweet, Henry Gibson, Steve Lawrence and Twiggy, who was jilted by Elwood. There additionally was Carrie Fisher, who hilariously recurred as a vengeful ex of Jake’s who’s bent on destroying him — with ever-increasing firepower and futility. Coincidentally, her Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Again saved The Blues Brothers from being the No. 1 movie within the nation. It ranked because the No. 10 field workplace movie of 1980.

Cropper and the opposite group members who’d performed on SNL reprised their roles within the movie, spurred by the oft-quoted taglines, “We’re getting the band again collectively” and “We’re on a mission from God.” Cropper and others would return for a 1998 sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, by which John Goodman changed the late Belushi.

Cropper had launched his solo debut LP in 1969 for Stax, and he resumed his solo profession with a pair of early-’80s albums for MCA: Playin’ My Thang and Night time After Night time. In the course of the ’90s, he launched Play It, Steve! Information and continued to work as a session guitarist into the 2020s.

Among the many dozens of big-name acts Cropper performed with over the a long time are John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, B.B. King, Albert King, Alabama, Jimmy Buffett, Harry Nilsson, Leon Russell, The Staples Singers, Peter Frampton, Etta James, Richie Havens, Chris Willman, Al Kooper and Chicago.

Cropper’s music and lyrics have been heard in tons of of movies and TV exhibits starting from American Graffiti, Quadrophenia and the ultralow-budget The Hollywood Knights — which featured the big-screen debuts of Michelle Pfeiffer, Tony Danza and star Robert Wuhl — to Good Morning, Vietnam, A Bronx Story, Indecent Proposal, Frasier, Get Shorty, The Large Lebowski and The Sopranos.

Cropper’s legacy is sealed with inclusion on quite a few “all-time guitarist” lists. in 1996, the English journal Mojo ranked his because the No. 2 axman behind Jimi Hendrix, and Rolling Stone put him at No. 36 in 2023. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame with Booker T. & The MG’s in 1992 and joined the Songwriters Corridor of Fame in 2005. Cropper is also a nine-time Grammy nominee from 1968-2024, profitable twice: Greatest Rhythm & Blues Music for (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” in 1969 and Greatest Pop Instrumental Efficiency for Booker T. & The MG’s monitor “Cruisin’” in 1977.

Data on survivors and a memorial service was incomplete.