#carla thomas

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With Carla Thomas in London

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“A Tremendous Loss to Music:” Steve Cropper Dies at 84

Steve Cropper, the guitarist who co-founded Booker T. & the M.G.’s and later played with Otis Redding and the Blues Brothers, has died at 84, his family said.

“While we mourn the loss of a husband, father and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music,” they said in a statement.

“Every note he played, every song he wrote and every artist he inspired ensures that his spirit and artistry will continue to move people for generations.”

No cause was given for Cropper’s death, which came “peacefully” in Tennessee.

“What a tremendous loss to music,” a “deeply saddened” Peter Frampton wrote on social media.

As a member of the M.G.’s, the Stax Records house band, Cropper played on recordings by Redding, Carla Thomas, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and others.

“He fused his passion for R&B with a unique rhythm style that set him apart from his contemporaries,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said of Cropper.

His songwriting credits include the M.G.’s’ signature “Green Onions,” Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay, Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” and others.

“Today, the music world lost one of its greatest architects … his legacy will live on in every note he touched,” Rizz & the Believerz said in an online eulogy.

Cropper was “not just a Memphis soul Telemaster, but also a visionary songwriter and producer,” Little Feat’s Scott Sharrard said in a statement.

“He will be sorely missed.”

Cropper range extended to country-rock and in 1971, he produced Poco’s From the Inside, leaving Richie Furay to eulogize his friend and colleague as a “sweet, humble and very talented guy.”

Cropper was also a member - “the backbone” - of the Blues Brothers band.

“It is with a heavy heart we say goodbye,” the Blues Brothers said.

Cropper, who would play with John Lennon, John Prine and Dolly Parton among others, later launched a solo career. His latest album, Friendlytown, arrived in 2024.

“I can't believe Steve Cropper is gone,” Leland Sklar said. “One of the greats. … Loved every minute we spent over the years in the studio. My heart is with his family now.”

12/3/25

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Visit Original Link

Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - New Year’s Resolution (1968)

Happy New Year everyone! From personal experience, I’d advise against making any unrealistic resolutions.

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Eddie Floyd: "Knock On Wood" / "Got to Make a Comeback" (1966)

Just about 60 long years ago, what started as a typical songwriting and recording session at Stax Records' famed Memphis headquarters turned into a pillar of the Soulsville U.S.A. catalog, and one of the defining, most enduring anthems of '60s soul music.

I'm talking about Eddie Floyd's Gold-certified "Knock On Wood," which went to No. 1 on the Soul Singles Chart, peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has since been covered by over 100 artists, from Amii Stuart (*), to Cher, to David Bowie, to Michael Bolton.

Not bad for an unproven singer with just a few singles under his belt and better known for co-writing hits for fellow artists like Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, and Otis Redding, until a series of happy accidents finally led to this timeless hit's release in the summer of 1966.

Let me back up a bit ...

As the story goes, "Knock On Wood" was born of an informal, late-night jam between Floyd and Booker T. & The M.G.'s guitarist Steve Cropper at Memphis' now historic Lorraine Motel (**), during which a severe thunderstorm rolled overhead.

Nature's fury combined with Floyd and Cropper's initial lyrics about bad luck in love and superstition ("I don't wanna lose your love / I better knock on wood") to inspire the famous opening lines: "It's like thunder, lightning / The way you love me is frightening ..."

Promptly cut on July 13, 1966 (***) by Floyd and the M.G.'s -- Cropper, Booker on keys, Donald 'Duck' Dunn on bass, and Al Jackson Jr. on drums -- the song's slow-burning groove coasts over sharp rhythm guitar stabs and horn charts crafted by Isaac Hayes with Wayne Jackson (trumpet) and Andrew Love (tenor sax) of The Mar-Keys.

For its part, Floyd's gritty, soulful delivery doesn't float over the rhythm section so much as punch right through it; but maybe the most memorable moment comes when Jackson mimics someone knocking on a door with his signature rim-shots during the chorus.

It's one of those simple, clever, spontaneous creative ideas that defined the uncomplicated genius of Stax's greatest productions.

And yet, label president Jim Stewart shelved the recording for months, feeling it was too similar to Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" (****), until finally being persuaded to release it by Atlantic's Jerry Wexler and covert radio spins attained by Stax's national promotion director, Al Bell.

Luckily, once the discs were finally ordered from the pressing plant, there was a quality B-side called "Got to Make a Comeback" (conveniently recorded on the same day by the same crew) awaiting in the vaults.

A gorgeous, pleading, minimalist soul ballad about waging a political campaign back into a lover's heart, this showcases a smoother, more vulnerable side of Floyd -- his gospel roots -- and provides an ideal counterweight for the "stormy" A-side.

Floyd never enjoyed another hit of this magnitude, but he came close with 1967's "Raise Your Hand" (No. 16), '68's "I've Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)" (No. 2) and "Bring it On Home to Me" (No. 4), and he remained with Stax until its bankruptcy in 1976.

More importantly, Eddie Floyd is still with us at age 89 (and, knock on wood, will still be for a long time); one of the precious few surviving Stax legends from that golden age at Soulsville U.S.A.

* Amii's 1978 disco version also went to No. 1 and became this eight-year-old boy's favorite song for a hot minute after he watched its special effects-enhanced music video, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, on a Sunday night variety TV show on Brazilian TV.

** Sadly immortalized as the site of Dr. Martin Luther King's murder, a couple of years later, the Lorraine Motel was a favorite stop and unofficial "creative clubhouse" for artists recording at Stax.

*** Sorry to burst your bubble, but this was a Wednesday, not a Friday the 13th -- I checked!

**** Largely because Floyd and Cropper had taken the "In the Midnight Hour" horn section, flipped it backwards, and incorporated it into their arrangement for "Knock On Wood."

More Soul and R&B: James Brown's Sex Machine, Ray Charles' What'd I Say, Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music," Sam Cooke's The Man and His Music, Aretha Franklin's Lady Soul, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On, Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul, Etta James' Etta Rocks the House, Chris Kenner's "I Like it Like That," Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem," Wilson Pickett's The Exciting Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding's Otis Blue, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas'' "(Love is Like a) Heat Wave," Sam & Dave's Greatest Hits, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' "The Tears of a Clown," Nina Simone's Nina Sings the Blues, Edwin Starr's War & Peace, Stevie Wonder's Talking Book.

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Robert Gordon: Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (2013)

"Memphis is the town where nothing ever happens, but the impossible always does."

I'm pretty sure that when you put down this book, you'll agree with me that Memphis is THE most important music city in American history.

It's the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, of course, but it's also where the blues left the Delta for the city, and where innumerable other music genres (country, gospel, soul, R&B, and later hip-hop) were culturally mingled and cross-pollinated like nowhere else throughout the 20th Century.

Stax Records, like Sam Phillips’ Sun, changed the face of music by bringing Blacks and Whites together like never before, and doing so in spite of segregation's iron grip; Stax turned Memphis into the Civil Rights movement's greatest musical experiment.

Sorry, New York, L.A., and Detroit, but it's true!

If you've watched either one of two incredible Stax documentaries, 2007's Respect Yourself or 2024's Soulsville U.S.A., and, like me, simply couldn't get enough, then might I suggest Robert Gordon's Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion to further your education?

Here, Stax is revealed as a microcosm of the broader battles, injustices, and contradictions of America's Civil Rights struggles: a safe haven where racial barriers temporarily dissolved, even while the city of Memphis itself burned just outside of the studio walls.

Of course, such groundbreaking integration through music could only happen largely by accident, as white siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton ('St' + 'Ax' -- get it?) found like-minded black business partners in Al Bell, David Porter, and other executives to build a music industry powerhouse.

Oh yeah, and an incomparable roster of multi-racial talent: Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, and their integrated M.G.'s, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Albert King, The Bar-Keys, Eddie Floyd, plus, through their joint venture with Atlantic Records, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, and more.

I won't spoil the joy of reading about their incredible achievements and gut-wrenching tragedies, but, thanks to their collective creative and professional efforts, by the early 1970s, Stax had become one of the largest Black-owned businesses in America.

It's sadly no coincidence that the moment Jim and Estelle severed their ties to Stax was precisely when a veritable cabal of racially-motivated white power brokers -- both in Memphis and on the Coasts, both from inside and outside the music industry -- suddenly converged and conspired to steal the label's priceless assets and put it out of business.

Again, the parallels between Stax's rise and fall and America's historical tradition of institutionalized racism are simply too obvious to ignore, so this fantastic book provides yet another lesson in Civics and a reminder that the fight for real and lasting change unfortunately continues.

Alright, that about wraps it up for Black History Month 2026, but tune in next week for a blog that should serve as a bridge to Women's History Month.

p.s. -- The legendary Steve Cropper sadly passed away at the age of 84 while I was reading Respect Yourself, may he rest in peace.

p.p.s. -- For serious music lovers and historians, the scene in Soulsville U.S.A. where Booker T. explains the musical origins of "Green Onions" is comparable to God and Adam's outstretched fingers in Michelangelo's The Creation of Man.

p.p.p.s. -- For a label with such an iconic brand, Stax sure loved assigning its artists to subsidiary imprints like Volt, Enterprise, and Gospel Truth, among others, as you can tell by the records photographed here.

Featured Records:

Booker T. & the M.G.s.: "Green Onions" / "Behave Yourself" (1962)

Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

Otis Redding: Otis Blue/ Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

The Rance Allen Group: A Soulful Experience (1975)

Buy from: Thrift Books

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Carla Thomas Recording at Stax Studio, Photo by Ernest Withers, 1960s

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Rufus Thomas *March 26, 1917

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🎶 Carla Thomas aka Queen of Memphis Soul. At Wikipedia