Jammed Together With Steve Cropper: The Guitar Legend On 'Friendlytown,' Making His Own Rules & Playing Himself
Steve Cropper is still "selling energy" — putting forth what a younger generation might call blues rock "vibes" with his pals as if it were still 1970.
This ethos dates back to his time at the legendary Memphis label Stax Records, where Cropper served as a songwriter, producer, engineer and A&R. Crucially, Cropper was the guitarist in Stax's house band, Booker T. & The MGs — they of "Green Onions" fame — and backed artists including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, and Carla Thomas. Among his many bonafides, Cropper co-wrote Redding's "(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay."
In his post-Stax years, the two-time GRAMMY winner and nine-time nominee produced and played on sessions with Jeff Beck, Jose Feliciano, John Prine, John Cougar, and Tower Of Power. He later joined Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars group and was among the original members in Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi's Blues Brothers band. Cropper resumed his solo career in the '80s, releasing several albums, while continuing to collaborate with leading lights like Paul Simon, Ringo Starr, Elton John and Steppenwolf.
Steve Cropper has stayed true to himself for over seven decades, thanks in no small part to advice from Stax founder Jim Stewart. "He said, 'Just play yourself and if they don't like it, they'll tell you,'" Cropper tells GRAMMY.com. "So I've been playing myself all my life and it's worked out. That's pretty cool."
At the 2025 GRAMMYs, Cropper is nominated in the Best Contemporary Blues Album Category for the aptly named Friendlytown, recorded with a mix of long-time collaborators and a few newer faces, together billed as Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour. Friendlytown's 13 tracks are familiar, digestible and straight-ahead rockin' — the kind of tunes you'd be thrilled to hear in a local dive. Featuring ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Queen guitarist Brian May, singer Roger C Reale, and guitarist Tim Montana, Cropper co-wrote and co-produced all of Friendlytown with bassist Jon Tiven.
"Steve's guitar playing on the song 'Hurry Up Sundown' is probably some of his best solo work and rhythm work," Tiven says. "It's amazing that at this point in his career, he could still be creating some of the greatest music of his life. I think that's a wonderful testament to the strength of his talent."
Meet Me At The Friendlytown Trader Joe's
There was very little methodical music-making behind Friendlytown, which partially grew out of sessions Cropper put together for his 2021 album Fire It Up. "This record was just about a bunch of guys getting together and having some fun. It's just like, Let's have a blast and try to make the party come to the record, rather than the record come to the party," Tiven notes.
Cropper and Tiven had been working on songs for years with the hopes of finding friendly musicians to give them life. While some found homes, the duo sat on instrumentals for years — until Tiven ran into Billy Gibbons at Trader Joe's. When Tiven told the sharp-dressed man he was making a record with Steve Cropper, "He just lit up like a firecracker and said he'd like to bring us a song. I said, 'Well, it's only going on the record unless you play on it.' And he said, 'Well, that could be arranged.'"
Gibbons ended up on 11 tracks; Friendlytown marks the first time he and Cropper worked together in many years. The ZZ Top vocalist's influence is audible on the album, particularly the title track and Eliminator-esque "Lay It On Down."
In Session At Stax
While casual may be the name of Cropper's game these days, "it definitely wasn't 35, 40 years ago," he says. Back then (and largely before, as Cropper left the label in 1970), making music was "was very serious, and I don't even think the guys had a good time." With a laugh, Cropper recalls his best friend, the Stax bassist/MG Duck Dunn, pining for a world in which "Jim Stewart would've only smiled every now and then."
While Cropper calls Stewart "the greatest guy I've ever met," the label head was known to be critical. "He knew if you fought for something, like a song, that it was a good song. And if you didn't fight for it, it wasn't worth nothing," Cropper says, chuckling. "He was right. I think about that all the time, but I don't use it. A songwriter could tell me how good a song they wrote is, but if I don't like it, I don't like it. I'm sorry!. I'm sure I've thrown away some good ones before."
A young Cropper put up a couple of fights, and for good reason. He recalls stumping for Wilson Pickett's "Ninety-nine and a half": [Jim Stewart said] "You boys was out there woodsheddin’. That song ain't going to make it." Cropper pressed it, and Stewart relented. The track made the cut for Pickett's 1966 album The Exciting Wilson Pickett.
Another big Stax hit stayed on the shelf for nine months while Cropper and co. battled it out with Stax brass. "Finally Al Bell went to Jim and said, 'You got to put this record out. It's called ‘Knock on Wood.' And Jim says, 'Okay, but you got to use your own money,'" Cropper says. "He hated that record until it was a hit."
Reflecting on the hardest song he's ever played, Cropper quickly points to Sam and Dave's "Soul Man." But the 1967 smash isn't difficult for the reasons you might think: the guitarist had to balance a Zippo lighter on his leg during sessions and performances, which he used to mimic the song's opening horn line. "I always had to dance [when recording] with Sam and Dave, because they could hit a groove. A lot of guitar players don't know that I played with a Zippo lighter and I'd slide it," he recalls.
Cropper reportedly hated the sound and feel of new guitar strings — something, he says, is no longer the case in old age — and in a lip-smacking good tidbit of studio lore, explained how he managed his unique sound. "I carry a thing of ChapStick all the time and I would go up and down the strings; [that would] take about three months out of the string so it would sound like the rest of them."
Sittin' On A Legacy
After decades in the business, it seems as if Cropper – though ever a professional – doesn't take himself or the creative process too seriously. He jokingly shares a reccolation from a studio session during his Stax years: Once the session was finished, Cropper told the group "Damn, this sounds like a hit." "And Al Jackson said, 'Steve, they're all hits until they're released.' He's probably right."
One of Stax's reliable hitmakers was a close friend of Cropper's: Otis Redding. The two shared a deep musical bond and some shared history. Both musicians grew up on farms ("By the time I was 14, I was ready to leave the home. By the time I was 16, I was gone in my mind," Cropper notes) yet the guitarist describes Redding as "most streetwise person that I ever met. I think he just had it. It came natural to him."
Redding played guitar with one finger and you "never argued with Otis" — especially because he was never available for sessions for more than a day or two. Most Otis Redding albums, as a result, were compilations from different sessions.
"I remember we cut 'I Can't Turn You Loose' in 10 minutes," Cropper says. "[When we recorded] Otis Blue, we had everybody come back at 1 [a.m.] -- after they did their gig and they went home and had their shower – so we could cut it."
Cropper knew that "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" — arguably Redding's biggest hit, and Cropper's first GRAMMY win — was a hit. "You know why I knew it was a hit? Because we had Otis the longest I'd had him; for two weeks."
The gentle lull of "Sittin'" was a radical departure from Redding's Southern soul bombast, and perhaps a sign of what was to come if the singer hadn't died tragically in a plane crash. "That one song, we searched for a long time. We call it crossover music; so it could go either way:, R&B, pop, whatever. That was the first one we ever had," Cropper says.
There's Always A Catch
Steve Cropper is still going strong at 83 years old. He reports that he enjoyed HBO's recent Stax Records docuseries, and has an unfinished instrumentals album in the can. He hasn't time for regrets, only dreams, but the name of the one person Cropper wishes he had worked with fires off like lightning: Tina Tuner.
Cropper saw the late legend three times. "I really did admire Tina. She was the closest person to Otis, I think, in the business. It's the yeller, screamer, but everybody loves their music. She was so good, it didn't matter how it was she's yelling and screaming," he says.
Tina Turner's loudest albums still have melody and something "people will walk away humming" — the very thing Cropper loved about Stax records. "We were selling groove and all, rather than the music," Cropper says of his work with the MGs. "We don't care about the music. We just cared about melody and what's in the simplicity of the song."