MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Steve Cropper, the unflashy but indispensable guitarist, songwriter and producer who anchored Booker T. and the M.G.’s at Stax Records and helped write classics such as “Green Onions,” “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” and “In the Midnight Hour,” has died. He was 84.
Pat Mitchell Worley, president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, said Cropper’s family reported his death on Wednesday in Nashville. The foundation runs the Stax Museum of American Soul Music at the former Stax Records site in Memphis, where Cropper spent much of his career. No cause of death was immediately announced. A longtime associate said Cropper had been at a Nashville rehabilitation facility after a recent fall and was working on new material shortly before he died.
Cropper’s guitar work was never showy; his spare, melodic riffs and steady rhythmic playing helped shape the sound known as Memphis soul. Comfortable in the sideman role, he collaborated across racial lines at a time when many white musicians profited from Black artists’ work without sharing credit or the spotlight.
He is name-checked in Sam & Dave’s 1967 hit “Soul Man”—midway through the track Sam Moore shouts, “Play it, Steve!” as Cropper delivers a tight, ringing riff. He achieved a distinctive slide tone by using a Zippo lighter and later recreated the part while appearing with The Blues Brothers on their hit cover of “Soul Man.” Moviegoers also saw Cropper in The Blues Brothers films and he toured with the band in real life.
Cropper described his musical approach as one of listening and supporting the song and other musicians rather than calling attention to himself. That restraint and taste won praise from peers and critics: he was widely cited as an influence by guitarists and earned accolades from icons such as Keith Richards. Rolling Stone placed him 39th on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists.
Born near Dora, Missouri, Cropper moved with his family to Memphis at age 9 and bought his first mail-order guitar at 14. Early influences included Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed and Chet Atkins. He joined the early Satellite Records roster—the label that would become Stax—playing with the Mar-Keys, who had a hit with “Last Night.” Out of those sessions grew Booker T. and the M.G.’s: Cropper, keyboardist Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and drummer Al Jackson. The racially integrated quartet—Jones and Jackson Black, Dunn and Cropper white—scored instrumental hits like “Green Onions,” “Hang ‘Em High” and “Time Is Tight,” and served as the house band for many Stax sessions backing artists such as Otis Redding and Sam & Dave.
In the mid-1960s, Cropper worked with Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler when Wilson Pickett recorded at Stax. Cropper adapted a line he heard in Pickett’s gospel singing to help fashion the secular hit “In the Midnight Hour.” He also collaborated closely with Otis Redding on “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” finishing the song with Redding shortly before Redding’s death in a plane crash in December 1967; the song became a posthumous No. 1 hit in 1968.
Cropper’s honors included induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a member of Booker T. and the M.G.’s, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He lost bandmates Al Jackson in 1975 and Duck Dunn in 2012. He continued recording into his later years: his 2024 album Friendlytown earned a Grammy nomination, and earlier this year he received the Tennessee Governor’s Arts Award, the state’s highest arts honor.
Friends and colleagues remember Cropper as a musician of taste and restraint whose playing was the secret ingredient on some of the greatest soul and rock records. He leaves behind a body of work that defined a sound and influenced generations of players.