Steve Cropper, Legendary Guitarist for Booker T. & the MG’s, Otis Redding and the Blues Brothers, Dies at 84

Guitarist Steve Cropper, who left an indelible impression on Memphis soul music as an instrumentalist, producer and songwriter at Stax Records, has died, his son Cameron confirmed to Variety on Wednesday. He was 84.

Cropper was best known to the public for his distinctive, economical lead/rhythm work in the hit-making interracial instrumental combo Booker T. & the MG’s, but his playing also fired dozens of tracks – some of which he produced or engineered — cut at Stax Records’ studio by such soul greats as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas and Eddie Floyd.

In 1996, British music monthly Mojo named him the second-greatest guitarist of all time, behind Jimi Hendrix. The publication said, “Cropper puts everything he’s got, which is considerable, at the disposal of the artist and the song: metronome-crisp timing; deadly-accurate chops; earth-moving bottom-line riffs; sharp, nasty little licks and grace notes. His solos never outstay their welcome or leave you wanting less.”

As a cleffer, he co-authored the MG’s smashes “Green Onions,” “Soul-Limbo” and “Time is Tight” and such mammoth R&B hits as Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” and “Mr. Pitiful,” Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” and “634-5789,” Floyd’s “Knock On Wood” and “Raise Your Hand” and Don Covay’s “Seesaw” and “Sookie Sookie.”

Though Cropper’s association with Stax ended amid front-office conflicts in 1970, the MG’s regrouped for further recording and touring from the ‘70s through the ‘90s, and backed such performers as Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, Neil Young and the Band’s Levon Helm.

Cropper’s highest-profile latter-day gig was as lead guitarist for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s musical act the Blues Brothers. The musician played on the duo’s double-platinum 1978 album “Briefcase Full of Blues” and four other albums, and appeared in both John Landis’ 1980 feature “The Blues Brothers” and its 1998 sequel “Blues Brothers 2000.”

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the MG’s in 1992.

Cropper was born Oct. 21, 1941, in Dora, MO. His family moved to Memphis when he was nine. He began playing guitar at 14; among his influences as a player, he cited Lowman Pauling of the R&B group the “5” Royales, Billy Butler of organist Bill Doggett’s combo and Bobby “Blue” Bland’s longtime accompanist Wayne Bennett.

In 1960, Cropper formed the white R&B unit the Royal Spades with several fellow students at Messick High School, including bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn. The group was soon joined by saxophonist Charles “Packy” Axton, whose mother and uncle, Estelle Axton and Jim Stewart, operated a fledgling record label, Satellite Records – soon renamed Stax – out of a storefront record shop adjoining an old movie house, converted into a recording studio, on McLemore Avenue.

An instrumental hammered out by Cropper, Axton and other Royal Spades members was recorded by the label’s producer Chips Moman, who deemed a guitarist unnecessary for the date. However, after “Last Night,” billed to the Mar-Keys, reached No. 2 and No. 3 on the R&B and pop charts, respectively, in 1961, Cropper joined the touring edition of the band. He soon abandoned the road to work at Stax’s record store and studio.

A failed session backing local rockabilly artist Billy Lee Riley led to an epoch-making recording. With time on their hands, Cropper and the other players on the date – bassist Lewie Steinberg, drummer Al Jackson, Jr. and teenage multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones – worked up a swinging instrumental dominated by Jones’ Hammond organ.

Dubbed “Green Onions,” the number became a breakout national hit for Stax, climbing to No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 3 on the pop side. It served as a template for a succession of similarly styled singles by the unit, dubbed Booker T. & the MG’s (in which Cropper’s high school chum Dunn supplanted Steinberg in 1964).

The act’s most significant singles in their own right included “Hip Hug-Her” (No. 6 R&B, 1967), “Soul-Limbo” (No. 6 R&B, 1968), “Hang ‘Em High” (No. 9 pop, 1968) and “Time is Tight” (No. 7 R&B, No. 6 pop, 1969); the latter number was cut for the soundtrack of “Up Tight,” a Blaxploitation remake of “The Informer.”

While the MG’s issued a steady stream of 45s and albums through the ‘60s, they did their most significant work as Stax’s house band; after Moman exited the company after a falling out with Stewart in 1962, Cropper was installed as the label’s A&R director. The band backed every Stax act until Jones’ departure for California in 1969, and supported Redding, Sam & Dave, Floyd and Arthur Conley on the label’s celebrated 1967 package tour of Europe.

In 1969, near the end of his tenure at Stax, Cropper cut a pair of albums under his own name that focused on his guitar work: “With a Little Help From My Friends” and a collaboration with Pops Staples of the Staple Singers and bluesman Albert King, “Jammed Together.”

Like Moman before him, Cropper exited Stax after conflict with the front office: At loggerheads with new chief executive Al Bell, he was out the door by the time the last MG’s LP for the label, “Melting Pot,” was issued in 1971. He increasingly devoted himself to production, working with such acts as John Prine, Jeff Beck and Ringo Starr.

Neither Cropper nor Jones was present on the 1973 album “The MG’s,” and a proposed 1975 reunion of the classic quartet lineup ran aground when Jackson was murdered in his Memphis home. However, latter-day editions of the group featuring Cropper, Jones and Dunn with drummers Willie Hall and Steve Jordan cut three albums in 1976-77 and 1994. Drummer Steve Potts worked in late touring editions of the group.

Cropper’s greatest success in later years came as guitarist for the various spinoffs of Belushi and Aykroyd’s hyperactive and tongue-in-cheek yet musically reverential Blues Brothers routines on “Saturday Night Live.” Dunn served as bassist in the backup band.

The No. 1 album “Briefcase Full of Blues” spawned a No. 14 single: a remake of the 1967 Sam & Dave hit “Soul Man,” on which Cropper and Dunn had played. The 1980 soundtrack album for the hit feature peaked at No. 13 and shifted a million copies; the gold album accompanying the ’98 sequel rose to No. 12.

Later high-profile dates by the MG’s included work as the backup band for Bob Dylan’s 1992 “30th Anniversary Concert” at Madison Square Garden; a stint supporting Neil Young on his 1993 U.S. tour; and a house band stand at the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s museum opening in 1995.

Cropper’s four solo albums of the new millennium included “Dedicated” (2011), a warmly received tribute to “5” Royales guitarist-songwriter Pauling.

He is survived by his second wife Angel and their two children, and by two children from his first marriage.