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)

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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.