36} Steve Cropper

Steven Lee "Steve" Cropper (born October 21, 1941, Dora, Missouri, United States)[1] is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and has backed artists such as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor, also acting as producer on many of these records. He later gained fame as a member of the Blues Brothers band.[2] Rolling Stone lists him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.[3] Mojo ranks Cropper as the second-best guitarist ever. His nickname is "The Colonel."

When he was nine years old, Cropper moved with his family to Memphis, Tennessee. At the age of ten, he strummed his brother-in-law's Gibson guitar for the first time.[citation needed] Cropper received his first guitar by mail order at 14 and started playing with local musicians. His guitar heroes at the time included Lowman Pauling of the "5" Royales, as well as Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry, Tal Farlow, Jimmy Reed, and the guitarist of the Bill Doggett band, Billy Butler.

Probably the best-known soul guitarist in the world, Steve Cropper came to prominence in the early '60s, first with the Mar-Keys ("Last Night"), then as a founding member of Booker T. & the MG's. A major figure in the Southern soul movement of the '60s, Cropper made his mark not only as a player and arranger (most notably on classic sides by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett) but as a songwriter as well, co-writing the classic "In the Midnight Hour." After the breakup of the MG's, Cropper spent most of the '70s producing Jeff Beck and Mitch Ryder, among others. In the '80s, he rode the classic Stax sound (which he helped shape) back to popularity with a new audience when actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd tapped him for service in the Blues Brothers, a Saturday Night Live skit that stretched into several albums and a movie. Cropper remained in demand as a session man, producer, and collaborator into the new century, although very little appeared under his actual name as a recording artist. That changed in 2008 with the release of the affirming Nudge It Up a Notch, a project recorded with former Rascals frontman Felix Cavaliere and tracked at Jon Tiven's Hormone Studio in Nashville, on the revitalized Stax Records imprint. A second collaboration between Cropper and Cavaliere, Midnight Flyer, appeared in 2010. In 2011, Cropper released Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales on 429 Records. The concept album was an all-star celebration and acknowledgment of the influence of seminal soul guitarist Lowman “Pete” Pauling and his mid-'50s to early-'60s group the “5” Royales on his playing. Co-produced with Tiven, some of Dedicated's guests included, B.B. King, Brian May, Steve Winwood, John Popper, Bettye LaVette, Lucinda Williams, Sharon Jones, Shemekia Copeland, Delbert McClinton, Willie Jones, Buddy Miller, and 21-year-old Louisiana singer/songwriter Dylan LeBlanc. 

 

  Cropper married his second wife, Angel, in the late 1980s. They have two children, Andrea and Cameron. The Croppers currently live in Nashville, Tennessee

 Discography

    1971: With a Little Help from My Friends
    1981: Playin' My Thang
    1982: Night After Night
    1991: Jammed Together (with Albert King and Pops Staples)
    2007: This Is ... Steve Cropper & His Friends
    2008: Nudge It Up A Notch
    2010: Midnight Flyer
    2011: Dedicated – A Salute to the 5 Royales

ျမန္မာတို ့အတြက္ Guitar ဗဟုသုတ