Remembering Steve Cropper / Playwright Tom Stoppard

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We remember guitarist, songwriter, and producer Steve Cropper, who helped create the Memphis soul sound of the ‘60s and ‘70s. He died this week at age 84. Stax Records produced soul hits by Booker T. & the M.G.s, Sam & Dave, Isaac Hayes, and more. Cropper spoke with Terry Gross in 1990 about how he became part of the house rhythm section, and went on to help write hits for Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett.

Also, we remember the celebrated English playwright Tom Stoppard, who was considered a giant of theatre. He died at age 88. Stoppard wrote ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ and ‘The Real Thing,’ and the screenplays for ‘Empire of the Sun’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love.’

Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead pays tribute to jazz organist Jimmy Smith, and John Powers reviews the new Brazilian film ‘The Secret Agent.'

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley.
0:03.1	Steve Cropter, the guitarist whose influential work for Stax Records in Memphis,
0:08.0	helped define soul music in the 1960s and 70s, died Wednesday in Nashville. He was 84 years old.
0:15.2	Today, we listened back to an archive interview with Croper.
0:19.3	As a member of Booker T and the MGs, the in-house rhythm section at Stacks,
0:24.5	Cropper played guitar on some of the greatest soul hits of the 60s,
0:28.4	records by Carla and Rufus Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding.
0:33.6	I've been loving you too long to stop now.
0:52.3	You are tired
0:55.0	And you want to be free
1:01.0	My love is going stronger
1:06.0	As you become a habit to me.
1:11.6	Ooh, I'm loving you too long.
1:19.6	I don't want to stop now.
1:24.6	Otis Redding recorded in 1965.
1:31.2	Steve Cropper wasn't just a guitarist at Stacks Records.
1:33.8	He also was a producer and a songwriter.
1:38.4	The number one R&B hits he helped write included Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,
1:40.2	Eddie Floyd's Knock on Wood, and Wilson Pickett's in the midnight hour.
1:45.1	Steve Cropper was 14 when he bought his first guitar and developed his style by listening to both country and rhythm and blues guitarists.
1:53.7	In 1962, when Cropper was doing an instrumental jam at Stacks Records with organist Booker T. Jones and his band, the engineer
2:02.1	hit record. The resulting record, Green Onions, was a major hit. Steve Cropper appeared in the 1980
	...

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