Steve Cropper on guitar playing....

[Michael Messer]

Steve Cropper: “I’ve got a weird career. I was brought up on country music and church singing. When I first heard rhythm and blues, I was only 10 and it really impressed me a lot. I never looked back after that… it’s the greatest music I’ve ever heard.

“But I’ve also had a fairly well-rounded career, I would say. The most fun I ever had was with John Belushi and The Blues Brothers. People don’t believe me but me and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn [bass] played exactly how we did in high school, we didn’t know anything!

“What’s the secret to great blues playing? I don’t know if there is one but I’ve told people in the past be careful what you play on sessions, because you might get asked to play it again sometime. Guitar players today play exactly what they did in the studio on stage, or at least pretty close. In the early days, if you came in playing like how they do now, it probably wouldn’t have even been recorded!
“I don’t warm-up or anything – when they say my name I just walk out and go – so I always look at my guitar before playing and say, ‘If you don’t play good tonight, you’re going to be firewood in the morning!’ Yeah, at times it can feel like my guitar doesn’t want to talk to me (laughs).

By Amit Sharma / Music Radar
Photo: David McClister for The Wall Street Journal

Shine On
Michael

[stevearcade]

Love Steve Cropper. A real master of less is more, with a sharp ear for what's right. My first electric guitar was an olympic white Tele, 60s reissue, because that's what Steve played throughout the 60s when he was working at Stax. Of course, because I had a guitar like his, that meant I could play like him too...   (in my dreams)

[Michael Messer]

I met Steve in 2001 and he was a great person to hang out with - humble, polite and talkative.

Shine On
Michael

[stevearcade]

Oh wow! Hanging out with Steve "The Colonel" Cropper. What a dream and a privilege.

[tomgiemza]

I chatted with him for a while after his performance with The Original Blues Brothers Band at Suwałki Blues Festival in 2017.

Here are two of my favourite tracks with his guitar: