steve cropper...

 Happy 81st birthday to the great 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.

“People always ask stupid questions like who is my favorite electric guitarist and I always say José Feliciano. And they say, ‘Steve, but he’s a flamenco player!’ And I say, ‘Yeah but you’ve never heard him play, I’ve seen him play electric guitar – having done three albums with him!’ He is crazy. He can play both parts of The Allman Brothers stuff at the same time, doing Dickey Betts and Duane Allman in one go.

“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!

Photo by David Reed Archive