Playlist: Steve Cropper

Last week the world lost one of its most celebrated and important musicians, when Steve Cropper died aged 84 on 3 December.

The 1960s was the era of the session band; the US was stacked full of them, pretty much every major label had them - there was the Muscle Shoals crew, the Memphis Horns, the Wrecking Crew and of course, Booker T. and The MG's at Stax.

Photo: Don Paulsen / Michael Ochs Archive / Getty Images

Cropper was a core member of that last lot, through much of the 60s, with Booker T. Jones, Donald 'Duck' Dunn (who replaced Lewie Steinberg) and Al Jackson Jr; but he was much more than that... They were the house band for Stax Records, but more than that, he co-wrote many of the songs he played on, and he produced many of them as well.

He left the Stax family in 1970, which left him to work with countless other performers (and do some solo stuff) for the next five decades. But it is some of those legendary Stax songs we will focus on for our playlist today.

1. Booker T. & The MGs: Green Onions

Photo: Atlantic Records

We'll start with the MGs themselves and their signature tune. This was one of the biggest instrumentals of the era; an R&B tune that followed a basic twelve-var blues riff with some great hammond organ swirls over the top. The basic version was written by Booker T. Jones when he was just 17, although the final recording was a result of the band jamming in the studio. They were due to be backing a session for Billy Lee Riley, which never happened, so they started playing around in the studio - building on that riff that Jones had used in clubs before. It was initially the B-Side to Behave Yourself, but when Cropper took a copy to WLOK in Memphis, who played the B-Side, getting such a positive reaction that Stax flipped it and re-released it as an A-Side. It was a wise decision - Green Onions hit 3 on the Billboard chart.

Green Onions (live version)

2. Sam & Dave: Soul Man

Soul Man was written by no less than Isaac Hayes, with David Porter, giving Sam and Dave their first hit in 1967. It has since been preserved in the National Recording Registry (Library of Congress) for being "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant." Hayes found inspiration from the heat of the Civil Rights movement that was swirling around the US at the time. He noted that black families were marking buildings not destroyed in the riots with "soul" - reminding him of the story of Passover in the bible. So he came up with lyrics about one's struggle to rise up in such conditions. Cropper, playing one of the most distinctive soul riffs, even gets name checked in this, as they sing "play it, Steve".

Soul Man (audio only)

3. Albert King: The Hunter

Born Under A Bad Sign was not a commercial success, but has become one of the classic blues albums of the late 60s. This is a record that influenced many great guitarists afterwards, including Stevie Ray Vaughan. He gets the slightly strange sound, because he played a right handed guitar as a leftie, meaning he struck the string differently. The Hunter was written for it by Cropper and some of his MG colleagues, and they play on it with the equally legendary Memphis Horns.

The Hunter (audio only)

4. Otis Redding: (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay

Co-written by Cropper and Redding, this was recorded twice in 1967, the second time just a few days before Redding's untimely death in a plane crash. It was eventually released in January 1968, becoming the first ever posthumous US number one. Redding completed the lyrics over time; starting while staying on a houseboat at Waldo Point (Sausalito), before adding more lines on napkins and paper in hotel stays. Cropper helped him complete the song when they got in the studio. Redding didn't intend this to be the released version, he wanted to do another version (possibly with the Staples Singers on backing vocals), but he died before he could. It is, of course, an absolute classic - and was Top 5 in the UK as well as that US top spot.

(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay (official music video)

5. Eddie Floyd: Knock On Wood

While many people of my age may remember Amii Stewart's 1979 disco version of Knock On Wood; we are, of course, going back to 1966 and the original. Written in a Memphis motel by Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd, it is loosely based on another Cropper co-composition, In The Midnight Hour (see number xx). There was apparently a thunder storm on the evening they wrote it, hence the lines, "it's like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightening." The pair initially had Otis Redding in mind for the tune, but Stax manager Jim Stewart turned that idea down. So it was recorded in July 1966 by Floyd, with the MGs as his band (with Isaac Hayes on piano) and Stewart in the producer's chair. Otis did record it in the end, as did David Bowie and the aforementioned Amii Stewart.

Knock On Wood (audio only)

6. Frank Black: Sunday Sunny Mill Groove Day

We move away from the classic Stax stuff for one song - Cropper left Stax in 1970 and worked with many others over the next 55 years. One slightly odd mix was his appearance on several solo records by Pixie, Frank Black in the noughties. For the album Honeycomb, he travelled to Nashville to record, where producer Jon Tiven lined up Spooner Oldham and David Hood from the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and Steve Cropper, as his backing band! Black rarely strays into cover versions, but for this album he chose three, including (nicely aligned with a post from last week) this one by Doug Sahm. If you're used to his heavy-duty Pixies output, this will come as something of a surprise (in a very good way)

Sunday Sunny Mill Groove Day (audio only)

7. Rufus Thomas: Walkin' The Dog

This became Rufus Thomas' signature hit, making number 10 in the US in December 1963. It never charted in the UK, only the version by the Dennisons made the charts there. It has been covered by myriad others, from the Stones and Georgie Fame to Green Day and Aerosmith. It kicks off with the same first 14 notes as Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The song was written by Thomas but features Booker T & The MGs as the band.

Walkin' The Dog (audio only)

8. Mavis Staples: Son Of A Preacher Man

John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins wrote this song (they also did Love Of The Common People), which Dusty Springfield recorded in 1968. Mavis Staples, who has become one of the enduring legends of R&B, had cut her teeth as part of the family ensemble Staples Singers, but by the late 60s she had struck out on her own as well. Her 1969 self-titled debut album was produced by none other than Steve Cropper, who also played guitar on it (giving the riff a jaunty little twist).

Son Of A Preacher Man (audio only)

9. Wilson Pickett: In The Midnight Hour

Cropper, who co-wrote the song, said he got some inspiration when listening to some old gospel songs that Wilson Pickett had apparently sung on (he didn't know much about him before their first session). In one of the songs on that record, he could hear him singing, "I'll see my Jesus in the midnight hour!" So he took the midnight hour phrase (although it is probably likely that Cropper heard Pickett sing this line with The Falcons and not on a gospel record). This became yet another song that Cropper was involved with that has ended up in the National Recording Registry.

In The Midnight Hour (audio only)

10. Otis Redding: Try A Little Tenderness

I know that there isn't usually two songs by the same artist in these playlists, but this is Otis Redding we're talking about. This song originally dates back to the 1930s and the Ray Noble Orchestra - but also by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra along the way. But Otis... what a version! He slowly builds this from a ballad to a crescendo of magnificent R&B! And for me, it is forever linked with Jon Cryer's fantastic scene in Pretty In Pink - lip synching while dancing around the record store. Oh, and Cropper and co were backing him.

Try A Little Tenderness (audio only - a thing of beauty)

And as a bonus - here is that version from Pretty In Pink