Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd - In Session (CHCH-TV Studios, Hamilton, Canada, 1987)

From about 1983 to 1988, there was a very unusual and interesting program on a Canadian TV station, called "In Session." It specialized in putting two or more musicians together in a recording studio and then filming their collaboration. Here's an episode that united three soul musicians: Steve Cropper, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd.

First off, a bit more about this TV show. I've previously posted two other episodes. One paired Glen Campbell with Jimmy Webb, and the other paired Campbell with Leon Russell. I have since found out that a 1983 episode paired Stevie Ray Vaughan with Albert King. I won't be posting that one, because it has been officially released, and that album is well known and easily available:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Session_(Albert_King_and_Stevie_Ray_Vaughan_album)

But I recently dug deeper, and found some other interesting episodes. I plan on posting at least two more after this one. If anyone knows more about this show, or has more episodes, please let me know, because I haven't been able to find out much. (For instance, I couldn't find the exact date of this episode, and I've even seen conflicting information on the year. So if anyone has more accurate info about that, please let me know.)

Anyway, back to this episode. Cropper, Bell, and Floyd were far from strangers, because they collaborated with each other quite a lot back in the 1960s. All of them were part of the Stax Records hit-making machine. Cropper is best known as a session musician lead guitarist as well as a songwriter (I've posted two Covered albums for him), though he also was a key member of the Stax house band, Booker T. and the MG's. Bell and Floyd were both famous for their singing careers. However, both of them were also very capable songwriters. For instance, Bell wrote his hits "You Don't Miss Your Water" and "Private Number," and well as songs for others, such as "Born Under a Bad Sign" for Albert King. Floyd generally wrote all of his hits, including the classic "Knock on Wood." Many of them, including that one, were written with Cropper. But Floyd also wrote songs for others. For instance, he and Cropper wrote a couple of hits for Wilson Pickett, such as "634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.)" and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)."

Cropper and Bell also wrote songs together. For instance, they wrote "Share What You Got (But Keep What You Need)," a minor hit for Bell in 1966. Furthermore, Bell and Floyd wrote songs together. For instance, they co-wrote the 1971 song "'Till My Back Ain't Got No Bone," which was recorded by Bell and later covered by Albert King. Additionally, Cropper often played lead guitar on the songs recorded by Bell and Floyd. So there was a lot of collaboration going on between these three, plus others at Stax like Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and David Porter. 

For this episode, the three of them performed one classic soul hit after another. For most of the songs, at least one of them sang, wrote, or played on the original. They also shared some interesting stories between the songs. If you're a fan of the great Stax records of the 1960s and early 1970s, you really should listen to this.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is very good. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 I Can't Turn You Loose [Instrumental] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
02 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
03 These Arms of Mine (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
04 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
05 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
06 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay - Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa [Sad Song] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
07 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
08 A Tribute to a King (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
09 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
10 Knock on Wood (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
11 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
12 Hip Hug-Her [Instrumental] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
13 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
14 You Don't Miss Your Water (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
15 talk (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)
16 634-5789 [Soulsville U.S.A.] (Steve Cropper, William Bell & Eddie Floyd)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MSBFW64m

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/gulpelJL5thPLnR/file

The cover image is from this exact TV show episode. From left to right: Steve Cropper, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd. The image is rather low res because it's a screenshot I took from pretty rough video footage. 

Various Artists - Dave Edmunds' All Star Rock 'n' Roll Revue, Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA, 4-7-1990

The world lost another musical great last week (as I write this in early December 2025). Lead guitarist Steve Cropper died on December 3, 2025. He was 84 years old. I wanted to post something to celebrate his music. But that was a bit tricky, since he was mostly a session musician and songwriter. While he did put out some album under his own name, that was just a small part of his musical legacy. And when he toured, he almost always was part of bands supporting other stars.

I looked around, and found this concert, which I'd never known of before. Cropper was part of the backing band, along with Terry Williams (ex-Rockpile), Phil Chen (ex-Rod Stewart), the Memphis Horns, and others, so he played on every song.

This tour probably happened thanks to Ringo Starr of the Beatles. In 1989, Starr put on the first of many "His All-Starr Band" concert tours. These consisted of Starr plus a rotating group of other musical stars who weren't big enough of their own to play big concert venues. But when they were packaged together, along with an ex-Beatle, they were. Dave Edmunds looked at that formula and immediately decided to try the same thing. He brought together Kim Wilson, former lead vocalist of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Graham Parker, and Dion. Each of them played about a half an hour set, with Edmunds playing both at the start of the concert and at the end.

The shows were successful, it seems. But Edmunds only attempted this for this one tour. In fact, he joined the "His All-Starr Band" tours in 1992 and 2000. Perhaps that's because Edmunds went into semi-retirement after 1990. He only put out one more album of new material, in 1994. And he only did one more significant tour, in 2007, before retiring from music for good in 2017.

This concert was the last show of the tour. I read that a double album of this exact concert was released, but only in Japan. However, if that's true, it would only be a minority of this recording, since this is a very long concert, at nearly three hours! This concert was also broadcast for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, which is why we have it with excellent sound quality.

One last thought. A while back, I made two "Covered" album for Steve Cropper. So if you want to remember all the great songs he helped write, that's probably an even better way to do it. Here are the links to those:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/various-artists-covered-steve-cropper_30.html

This album is two hours and 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Dave Edmunds)
02 Last Night [Instrumental] (Dave Edmunds)
03 Fallin' through a Hole (Dave Edmunds)
04 Feel So Right (Dave Edmunds)
05 Closer to the Flame (Dave Edmunds)
06 Don't Talk to Me (Dave Edmunds)
07 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Dave Edmunds)
08 talk (Dave Edmunds)
09 Wrap It Up (Kim Wilson)
10 It Comes to Me Naturally (Kim Wilson)
11 Wasted Tears (Kim Wilson)
12 I Believe I'm in Love with You (Kim Wilson)
13 There Is Something on Your Mind (Kim Wilson)
14 Tuff Enuff (Kim Wilson)
15 talk (Kim Wilson)
16 Nervous Fella (Kim Wilson)
17 talk (Dave Edmunds)
18 Get Started, Start a Fire (Graham Parker)
19 Under the Mask of Happiness (Graham Parker)
20 talk (Graham Parker)
21 Local Girls (Graham Parker)
22 talk (Graham Parker)
23 My Girl (Graham Parker)
24 Slash and Burn (Graham Parker)
25 talk (Graham Parker)
26 Lady Doctor (Graham Parker)
27 talk (Graham Parker)
28 My Love's Strong (Graham Parker)
29 Soultime (Graham Parker)
30 Heat Treatment (Graham Parker)
31 talk (Dave Edmunds)
32 King of the New York Streets (Dion)
33 talk (Dion)
34 The Night Stood Still (Dion)
35 talk (Dion)
36 Ruby Baby (Dion)
37 talk (Dion)
38 Written on the Subway Wall (Dion)
39 Runaround Sue (Dion)
40 The Wanderer (Dion)
41 talk (Dion)
42 Abraham, Martin and John (Dion)
43 From Small Things [Big Things One Day Come] (Dave Edmunds)
44 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
45 talk (Dave Edmunds)
46 Ju Ju Man (Dave Edmunds)
47 King of Love (Dave Edmunds)
48 talk (Dave Edmunds)
49 Crawling from the Wreckage (Dave Edmunds)
50 Paralyzed (Dave Edmunds)
51 talk (Everyone)
52 [Sitting On] the Dock of the Bay (Everyone)
53 I'm Ready (Everyone)
54 Keep A-Knockin' (Everyone) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/w4EEsJQM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4B7YTBcfLApwM51/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Marlboro Blues Festival, in Chicago, Illinois, on March 24, 1990. From right to left: Steve Cropper, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker, and Dion.

Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary - Madison Square Garden, New York City, 5-14-1988, Part 3: The MG’s, Carla Thomas, Paul Rodgers, Miki Howard, Paul Shaffer, Sam Moore, The Elwood Blues Review, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, The Spinners, & Wilson Pickett

Here's the third part of six-hour long version of the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert. 

In the 1950s and 60s, Atlantic Records was mainly known as an R&B/ soul record label, though it broke out into other musical genres by the end of the decade. Most of this section served as a kind of concert within a concert that celebrated the 1960s soul music of the company. Atlantic Records distributed most of the music done by the Stax record label, so all of that was fair game here as well.

In the 1960s at Stax Records, the instrumental group the MG's backed up most of the other lead singers on the label, in addition to having some instrumental hits of their own. Later, key members of that band, like Steve Cropper and Donald 'Duck' Dunn, joined the Blue Brothers band in the late 1970s. Led by comedians/singers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, they had a hit movie and some hit albums before Belushi died in the early 1980s. For most of this section of the concert, Cropper, Dunn, and other members of the MG's were the backing band. But for a portion of it, their name changed to the Elwood Blues Review, a sort of variant of the Blues Brothers because Aykroyd got involved in those songs too.

That backing band then supported some different lead singers. Carla Thomas was an original Stax star. Paul Rodgers, however, was a big star with Free and Bad Company (on Atlantic Records). Both both of those bands had ceased to exist by the time of this concert. So instead of singing any of his own hits, he sang "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" as a tribute to deceased Stax star Otis Redding. 1980s R&B star Miki Howard also sang a song associated with Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness."

Another big musical act for Stax was the soul duo Sam and Dave (Sam Moore and Dave Prater). Unfortunately, Dave Prater died several months prior to this concert (and the two of them had had a big falling out prior to that anyway). But Sam Moore was at this concert to represent Sam and Dave. Dave Prater was effectively replaced on some songs by Aykroyd, kind of bringing back the Blue Brothers, and was replaced by Phil Collins on two other songs. 

The only odd one out in this R&B section of the concert was Bob Geldof. I'm not sure why he was put where he was in the running order, if indeed this order is correct, but oh well. It was also a bit strange that instead of doing any of his own hits from his Boomtown Rats years, he did a cover of a relatively obscure song by Graham Parker.

The Spinners continued the R&B vibe of this portion of the show, even though they had much bigger success in the 1970s compared to the 1960s. I could only find one song they did. But they also played "Working My Way Back to You" and "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love."

Finally, Wilson Pickett was the star of the last couple of songs here. He was backed by the Elwood Blues Review. I looked at the video, and Dan Akroyd danced around on stage a lot and played some harmonica, but the lead vocals were basically all done by Pickett. Still, this must have kind of been a reunion for Pickett, because the Elwood Blues Review was basically the same as the MG's, and they were the backing band for most of Pickett's hits in the 1960s. Pickett even co-wrote one of the songs he performed here, "In the Midnight Hour," with the lead guitarist on stage, Steve Cropper.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

043 talk (Dan Aykroyd)
044 Last Night [Instrumental] (MG's)
045 talk (Steve Cropper)
046 Gee Whiz (Carla Thomas & the MG's)
047 talk (Steve Cropper)
048 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Paul Rodgers & the MG's)
049 talk (Steve Cropper)
050 Try a Little Tenderness (Miki Howard & the MG's)
051 talk (Steve Cropper)
052 Tramp (Carla Thomas, Paul Shaffer & the MG's)
053 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
054 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
055 Soul Man (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
056 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
057 I've Been Loving You Too Long (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
058 talk (Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
059 You Don't Know like I Know (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
060 talk (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
061 Knock On Wood (Phil Collins, Sam Moore & the Elwood Blues Review)
062 talk (Roberta Flack)
063 talk (Bob Geldof)
064 You Can't Be Too Strong (Bob Geldof)
065 Mighty Love (Spinners)
066 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
067 talk (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)
068 Land of 1000 Dances (Wilson Pickett & the Elwood Blues Review)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zi3oxCsd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/UMkqqccXBZLa7Di/file

The cover photo of Wilson Pickett is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Stax-Volt Revue - Njardhallen, Oslo, Norway, 4-7-1967

Here's something a little different. In the 1960s, there were two distinctive and influential record labels when it came to soul music: Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis. (Stax is sometimes referred to as Stax/Volt, as it is here, due to Stax having a sister record label called Volt that was basically the same.)

At the time, instead of having individual musical artists doing entire concerts by themselves, it was typical in soul music to have a "revue" with a bunch of different artists. Not surprisingly, the Stax artists were usually packaged together, just as the Motown artists were.

Around 1966 and 1967, there was a huge surge of interest in soul music in Europe. This is because most soul records hadn't been available, and then they suddenly became available, and Europe found out about all kinds of great, classic songs in a short time. The Stax record company realized this and had their Stax revue tour Europe in the summer of 1967. They were greeted by very enthusiastic crowds everywhere they went, even though they were typically all white crowds of people generally new to soul music.

By some lucky chance, one such concert in Olso, Norway, was filmed, and the footage survived. This is very important footage, especially since Otis Redding was the main star and he died about half a year later. This footage has been released as a DVD, but I don't think there's any corresponding album release. So I converted the video to audio and broke it up into mp3s.

The concert starts with a bunch of instrumentals. Some are credited to "Booker T. & the MGs" and some are credits to the "Mar-Keys," but they're the same musicians, including the likes of guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Duck Dunn. They are then the house band for all the acts in the rest of the concert. (That was typically the case on the records as well.)

After that are relatively brief spots by Arthur Conley and Eddie Floyd. (I must say I'm really surprised Floyd's huge 1966 hit "Knock on Wood" wasn't included.) Then Sam and Dave and Otis Redding got larger slots of about 20 minutes each, because they were bigger acts.

If you're a fan of 1960s soul music, this is a priceless historical document, and a fun listen.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 Red Beans and Rice [Instrumental] (Booker T. & the MGs)
02 Green Onions [Instrumental] (Booker T. & the MGs)
03 Philly Dog [Instrumental] (Mar-Keys)
04 Grab This Thing [Instrumental] (Mar-Keys)
05 Last Night [Instrumental] (Mar-Keys)
06 In the Midnight Hour (Arthur Conley)
07 Sweet Soul Music (Arthur Conley)
08 Raise Your Hand (Eddie Floyd)
09 You Don't Know like I Know (Sam & Dave)
10 Soothe Me (Sam & Dave)
11 When Something Is Wrong with My Baby (Sam & Dave)
12 Hold On, I'm Coming (Sam & Dave)
13 Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa [Sad Song] (Otis Redding)
14 My Girl (Otis Redding)
15 Shake (Otis Redding)
16 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Otis Redding)
17 Try a Little Tenderness (Otis Redding)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15481730/StxVltRevue_1967_NjardhallnOsloNorwy__4-7-1967_atse.zip.html

The cover is based on the cover of the DVD. However, that was rectangular in shape, in keeping with the concert posters of the time, including fully copying the artistic style. So I used Photoshop to squish things vertically while not squishing the black and white photos that were included in the art. 

Various Artists - Covered: Steve Cropper, Volume 2: 1968-1994

I just posted Volume 1 of the Covered series albums focusing on the songwriting of Steve Cropper. But while I'm at it, here's Volume 2. As I write this in May 2021, Cropper's music career is still going strong despite him being 79 years old. In fact, he just released one of his very rare solo albums earlier in 2021, called "Fire It Up." But I'm ending the albums on him here with Volume 2.

I said most of what I wanted to say about Cropper with my comments about Volume 1. But I just want to note that Volume 2 includes "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, one of the greatest songs of all time. Cropper should be considered a top notch songwriter for his role in writing that song alone! I mentioned in my Volume 1 comments that Cropper seemed to do more of the music than the lyrics when it came to songwriting collaboration. But I was just reading the Wikipedia entry about "Dock of the Bay," and Cropper claims that he wrote most of the words, though from Redding's point of view, after Redding gave him the line "I watch the ships come in and I was them roll away again." I'd believe that claim too, since Cropper is a modest guy. I also suspect Cropper had a big role in writing the music for that song, since it was musically very different from everything else Redding had done up until that point.

All but last four songs here date from 1968 to 1972. Clearly, Cropper's success as a songwriter dropped significantly after that time. I suppose a lot of that had to do with changing musical styles. The Stax style of soul that Cropper was closely associated with also pretty much dropped out of the charts right around then. But Cropper continued to stay busy as a producer and a lead guitarist. In fact, he probably got his greatest fame as a member of the band in the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers."

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding)
02 See Saw (Aretha Franklin)
03 Soul Limbo (Booker T. & the MG's)
04 The Hunter (Free)
05 Mini-Skirt Minnie (Wilson Pickett)
06 Miss Pitiful (Etta James)
07 Water (Steve Cropper, Albert King & Pop Staples)
08 Melting Pot (Booker T. & the MG's)
09 Move 'Em Out (Delaney & Bonnie)
10 Stone Cold Sober (Rod Stewart)
11 Union Man (Cate Brothers)
12 On the Road Down (Robert Cray)
13 Going, Going, Gone (Bryan White)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xq7bkhUq

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/SMfTJ7v3tCumnDr/file

For Volume 1, I had a very hard time finding any good photos of Cropper from the 1960s, and I had to resort to colorizing a black and white one. But it's a sign of what a low-key person he is that I had a hard time finding any good color photos of him for the entire rest of his career! Virtually every other photo I found was mainly of someone else, with Cropper as a sideman. I did find this one of him from 1977. But even this one was of him and bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. I used Photoshop to crop Dunn out of the side of the photo.

Various Artists - Covered: Steve Cropper, Volume 1: 1962-1968

Steve Cropper is best known as a soul music lead guitarist. His minimalist style has been highly influential. In 1996, Mojo Magazine deemed him the greatest living guitar player, and Rolling Stone Magazine has put him in the top forty of their greatest guitarists of all time. But I think his lead guitar prowess has overshadowed his songwriting talent. But as you'll see from the list of songs below, he's had his hand in writing many of the greatest soul classics. I've found enough for two volumes of his songs. Here's the first one.

I suspect the reason Cropper isn't better known as a songwriter is that he rarely wrote songs all by himself. Instead, his songwriting was an extension of his work as a producer. I read an interview he did once where he explained that when he would produce other artists, he usually work ask them about unfinished songs they had. Then he would work with them to finish them off. That said,  it he got songwriting credit, it was because he had a major role in writing the song, often the biggest role. For instance, he wrote the Eddie Floyd classic "Knock On Wood" from scratch with Floyd, with the two of them brainstorming together to come up with the title as the first creative spark, and then they did all the rest of it together.

I also gather that Cropper wasn't that big on writing the words, but excelled in writing the music. You can see this in how he was involved in writing many classic instrumentals, especially with the band Booker T. and the MGs, which he was a member of. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry on him:

Steve Cropper - Wikipedia

This album plays like a greatest hits of soul classics, and it's the same for his Volume 2 album. It's amazing to me that he isn't better known as a songwriter. I suspect another reason for that is that he's a very low-profile, low-ego kind of guy who is content to be a sideman instead of a star. But hopefully including him in the Covered series will get more people to appreciate his songwriting talents.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Green Onions (Booker T. & the MG's)
02 In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett)
03 Candy (Astors)
04 Every Ounce of Strength (Carla Thomas)
05 Don't Fight It (Wilson Pickett)
06 Knock on Wood (Eddie Floyd)
07 Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa [Sad Song] (Otis Redding)
08 634-5789 [Soulsville, U.S.A.] (Wilson Pickett)
09 Things Get Better (Eddie Floyd)
10 Ninety-Nine and a Half [Won't Do] (Wilson Pickett)
11 Hip Hug-Her (Booker T. & the MG's)
12 Raise Your Hand (Eddie Floyd)
13 Sookie, Sookie (Steppenwolf)
14 The Happy Song [Dum-Dum-De-De-De-Dum-Dum] (Otis Redding)
15 You Don't Know What You Mean to Me (Sam & Dave)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2wXcSGJb

alternate link:

https://bestfile.io/en/WVjL3LbnqhJZXZm/file

I couldn't find any good color photos of Cropper from the 1960s, so I used a black and white one, and colorized it. This is from 1967.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.