Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper passed away at the of 84 on Dec. 3. As a member of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, he played on records by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, both Rufus and Carla Thomas, and even Neil Young, producing many of them. He was most familiar to many people as a member of the Blues Brothers, appearing as himself in the movie starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. He’s less well known for his role as a songwriter, having written “Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay” with Otis Redding and “Soul Man” with Sam & Dave.
In the wake of his passing, numerous musicians, especially fellow guitarists, played tribute to his legacy, including many whose work is very different from Cropper’s, like Vernon Reid of Living Colour. Reid noted that Cropper’s superpower was his ability to always play the right note. He wasn’t a technical virtuoso: many of his contemporaries were more technically gifted. Cropper excelled at writing and playing guitar parts filled with soul that served the song above all else.
Discussions about the greatest guitarists are an incessant feature of music social media, and it seems to me that these discussions aren’t particularly interesting or fruitful. What do we mean by “greatest,” anyway? “Greatness” isn’t some property in itself. There are many ways to excel as a guitarist: technical ability is certainly one, but the ability to serve the music and fill a role in a song is another. Often, in these discussions, the disagreements have less to do with our assessments of a guitarist’s ability than with differences in what matters to greatness. People talk past each other because they’re really talking about different things.
Watch Tom Jones and Steve Cropper perform “(Sittin’ On) The Doc of the Bay” live for BBC on YouTube:
For that reason, I don’t find lists and discussions of who the greatest guitarists are very interesting. In addition to differing on what makes a guitarist great, people’s opinions are colored by their musical tastes and preference. I can say that many heavy metal shredders are great guitarists, but it’s not a type of music that speaks much to me, so those aren’t the guitarists that come to mind when I think about this question.
A far more interesting question, I think, is “Who are your favorite guitarists?” The answers to that question are more revealing and honest, because we’re dropping any pretensions of objectivity and we’re speaking about what we most enjoy. I’m not sure the question of who the best guitarists are is really separable from the one about favorite guitarists. And if it isn’t, it’s best to just be honest and talk about the things we love than trying to assert some opinion on greatness.
Ask serious music fans and musicians about their favorite guitarists, and Steve Cropper is a name that will come up a lot. Is he one of the greatest guitarists of all time? I don’t even know what means, and I doubt you do, either. But I suspect that you, too, love his work, and can see how important it is to so many genres of popular music.
