Since parting with Stax in 1971, Cropper
has stayed busy across a wide front. He lent
cred and chops to the Blues Brothers, a semi-comic
tribute that became a torch carrier for
music from the Cropper school. He arguably
helped shoot them into the mainstream by
suggesting they record Sam & Dave’s “Soul
Man,” which became that hit album’s big
hit single. Cropper also performs occasionally
with Booker T. and Duck Dunn in
an updated incarnation of the MGs. Most
recently, Cropper has written and recorded
two albums with blue-eyed soul singer Felix
Cavaliere (formerly of the Rascals) for a
revived Stax imprint within the Concord
Music Group. Cavaliere (whose past hits
with the Rascals include “Groovin’” and
“A Beautiful Morning”) meshes easily with
Cropper’s wiry guitar parts, proving there’s
ample life in that original version of soul
music that radio stopped playing decades ago.
In Cropper’s latest gesture toward the
music that shaped him, he has presided
over and played on a multi-artist project
celebrating the music and legacy of the “5”
Royales. Based in Winston Salem, North
Carolina, the 1950s R&B group had hits
with songs that would become even
bigger
hits for others, such as “Think” (which
James Brown and the Fabulous Flames
took to No. 7 on the R&B charts) and
“Dedicated to the One I Love” (which
went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart for the Mamas & the Papas in 1967).
Cropper was enamored when he first
heard the band on the radio, and when he
caught them live in Memphis he became
a fervent fan of the group’s showy guitar
player, Lowman “Pete” Pauling. On the
Stax hero’s new tribute album,
Dedicated,
Cropper pays heartfelt homage to Pauling
alongside such notables as B.B. King,
Sharon Jones, Lucinda Williams, Steve
Winwood, and Delbert McClinton.
We recently got to shake Cropper’s
mighty hand at a Greek diner in Nashville,
where he’s lived for two decades. There,
over eggs and coffee, he reminisced and
caught us up on life as a hard-working,
award-winning guitar legend.
The MGs and friends hard at work in the studio in the mid to late ’60s. Left to right: Isaac Hayes sits at the piano
while Sam Moore and Dave Prater lean on the piano, Duck Dunn plays his Fender bass in the
background, Booker Jones plays the tuba, and Cropper plays through what appears to be a
blackface Fender Deluxe
Reverb. Photo courtesy of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music
How did the “5” Royales originally come
to your attention?
Basically, through the radio—there was
one particular song these guys did, a song
called “Think.” I went to a school in
Memphis called Messick, and it was a big
dance school. We all loved to dance. So
this song came about, and it had all these
guitar riffs in it. It really got my attention.
And I said, “That’s a song I want to
learn.” Prior to that, I’d been learning Bo
Diddley things and so forth. But Lowman
got my attention because of the way he
played rhythm.
And then you got to see Pauling and the
“5” Royales live, right?
Yes. We were working at a little club out
on Lamar called the Tropicana, and one
Saturday night they had this big show coming
in with the “5” Royales. The owner
said, “There won’t be a gig this weekend,
because we’ve got the “5” Royales coming
upstairs in the big room”—the big Beverly
Ballroom. So Duck and I said, “Is there any
way you can get us in?” And he said, “You
guys know you’re underage.” I said, “Yeah,
but can you sneak us in?” Anyway, he
believed we really needed to see this band,
so he got us in there. We politely sat in the
corner and got to see the whole show. We
were afraid to introduce ourselves, but we
observed everything and just went crazy.
Lowman Pauling had this long strap,
and I had seen Chuck Berry take his guitar
off or throw his strap and hold his guitar
down by his knees and play and dance
across the stage and do all sorts of stuff—
or pick it up and play behind his head.
That night, I couldn’t wait to get home.
My mom said, “What are you doing?”
and I said, “I’m looking for an extra belt.”
And she says, “You’ve got to go to bed.”
So the next morning, first thing when
I got up, I took the buckle off this old
belt and stitched it into my guitar strap
to make it longer so I could play like
Lowman Pauling.
I’ve been told that Pauling’s stabbing,
horn-like approach influenced you a
lot, too.
Exactly. If you listen to the old Stax
records, most of my licks, when I’m not
playing backbeat rhythms or something,
are more like horn lines—horn stabs.
When I was a kid, I used to think, “Oh
yeah, I can play that lick,” but when I
got into this project I really focused and
really listened to what Lowman Pauling
does. And I’m convinced I don’t have it
yet. I think he had some kind of funny
tuning—and when I say “funny,” I mean
anything other than standard tuning.
Because there are some things he plays
that I just can’t find in the position I’m
used to playing in. I couldn’t get the
inflection on certain things. He’s not
alive for me to ask, so I may never know.
How did this tribute album come to be?
It was not my idea. While nothing’s
ever over till it’s over, I had been saying
for the last couple of years that—with
our age and the age of the Booker T. &
the MGs and Blues Brothers projects—
the time for releasing new records and
doing things is just about to reach an
end. But [producer and saxophonist]
Jon Tiven, who we worked with on a
Felix Cavaliere record, was looking for
some kind of project he and I could
do together. He called me one day and
said, “Would you be interested in doing
a record as a tribute to the “5” Royales
music?” And I said, “Are you kidding?
Do you think you could get a record
company involved in that?” He said,
“I’ll call you right back.” And he did!
We got a record company and a budget,
and I’m going, “Holy mackerel! When
do we start?”
Stepping back a bit, when you were a
teenager in Memphis, starting to play
and attending sock hops and so forth, did
you aspire to play professionally? When
did that idea strike you?
No. There was a guy out of Memphis who
later came to Nashville and became a fairly
famous country singer. His name was Ed
Bruce. If I remember correctly, our school
had assemblies the last Friday of each
month. I don’t remember how often they
did the talent show, but I saw Ed Bruce at
one of them. I was in the ninth grade, a
freshman, and I think he told me that when
he did that he was a junior—so he was two
years ahead of me. He came out with just
his guitar, his Gibson electric guitar and an
amplifier, and sang Bo Diddley [songs].
And then there was a place that we used
to go and dance on Friday night called the
Casino, and I remember seeing Ed Bruce
again, live on that stage, and he did Bo
Diddley again. I somehow just was drawn,
like a magnet, and made my way to the
backstage. There was no security—nobody
told me I couldn’t do it—and I walked
back behind the curtain and he was putting
his guitar up. I said something stupid
like, “Man, how do you
do that?” And he
said, “Well, son, you just got to get you
a guitar and learn how to play it.” Okay,
end of conversation.
What happened then?
When I got home after school, the first
thing I did was grab the Sears and Roebuck
catalog and start looking at the guitars. I
asked my dad to buy me a guitar and he
said, “Son, we can’t afford a guitar.” “But
Dad, it’s only 17 dollars!” “We don’t have 17
dollars.” And they didn’t. So, I started doing
odd jobs for money. My dad, at the time,
would pay me 50 cents during the week
to mow the yard and hand-trim the grass
around the sidewalk. If I didn’t get it done
by Friday evening, I didn’t go out—not
only did I not get any money for it, I got
grounded as well! He was a pretty strict guy.