BLUES BROTHER
FOR THE PAST 60-plus years, Steve Cropper has maintained a legendary behind–the–scenes career as a musician, arranger, producer, songwriter and composer for movies and television shows. That said, the average casual music fan might only recognize his name from Sam Moore’s calling out just three words on Sam and Dave’s 1967 classic, “Soul Man”: “Play it, Steve!”
“Well, it’s like everything else that’s happened in my life,” Cropper says with a laugh. “I accept it with a grain of salt.”
He was born Steven Lee Cropper, October 21, 1941, in the small town of Willow Springs, Missouri. However, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has his own pet name for the state.
“I call it ‘misery’ because I grew up on a farm,” he explains. “Most of my friends and relatives don’t like me calling it that, but if you’ve ever chopped corn or spent a whole day filling up a big old gunny sack with beans for a nickel, that was not my idea of fun. Those were the first times I started getting calluses on my hands. Of course, now, after all these years of playing guitar, you could probably shove an ice pick in mine and I wouldn’t even feel it. When I come off the road, though, and it’s too long between shows, my calluses will just peel off until I start playing again.”
Cropper’s initial fascination with guitars goes back to when he was around nine years old in the early ’50s. As he recalls, “The first one I ever plucked belonged to my Uncle Dale Uhlman. I was fascinated by it and would take it out of the closet and pluck it
