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Animals and Friends with the
Legendary Steve Cropper
On Tour 2008
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A very rare chance to see one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time.
August 2008
Sunday 17th
Not available in Rehersal
Monday 18th
Not available in Rehersal
Tuesday 19th
Not available in Rehersal
Wednesday 20th Tba
Thursday 21st The Robin 2, Bilston
Friday 22nd Big River Blues and Jazz Festival, Ryder Square, Festival. Belfast.
Also Georgie Fame, Nine Below Zero, Henry McCullough and Ten Years After.
Saturday 23rd Rock n Roots, Ledbury. Herford
along with
Marillion, Jefferson Starship, Bad Company, Cerys Mathews and Curved Air, Walter Trout, Stan Webb's Chicken Shack, Thunderclap Newman, Stackridge,
Never The Bride and Martyn Joseph.
Sunday 24th The Barnard Castle Blues Festival
Monday 25th The Great British R n B Festival. Colne
along with
Supercharge, Dr Feelgood, Nine Below Zero, Eddie and The Hot Rods, Clause Ingstrom and Skyhigh, The Zombies, Billy Boy Arnold, Ian Parker Band, King Pleasure and The Biscuit Boys, Kyla Brox, Nuno Mendelis (The Beast From Brazil), Taste (Rory Gallaghers Original Band), Ruby Turner, The Yardbirds, Albert Lee and Hogans Heroes, Walter Trout, Andy Fairweather Low, Wilko Johnson and British Blues Quintet with Maggie Bell,
Tuesday 26th Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline. Scotland
Wednesday 27th Carling Academy Newcastle
Thursday 28th Dingwalls London
Friday 29th Rhythm Festival, Bedford.
along with
Big Star, Jefferson Starship, The Saw Doctors, Richie Havens, The Zombies, Chas & Dave, Jah Wobble, Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band,The Pretty Things, Wilko Johnson, Nine Below Zero, Neville Staples Band, Stackridge, Man and Juicy Lucy
Sunday 31st tba
with special guest Spencer Davis and Steve Cropper
September 2008
Tuesday 2nd Millfield Theatre, Edmonton
Steve Cropper.
As a guitarist, A & R man, engineer, producer, songwriting partner of Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd and a dozen others and founding member of both Booker T. and the MG's.
Steve Cropper was literally involved in virtually every record issued by Stax from 1961 through to 1970.
Credits assure Cropper of an honored place in the soul music hall of fame. As co-writer of (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay, Knock on Wood and In the Midnight Hour, Cropper is in line for immortality.
Steve's first chart encounter was with the Mar-Keys, they wrote and recorded a popping instrumental entitled Last Night in early summer 1961, the record shot into the Top 5 on both the pop and R & B charts,
By the time of the Mar-Keys record, Cropper was something of a studio veteran, already having played sessions for Sun, Duke-Peacock and Hi Records. It was only natural, then, that shortly after quitting the Mar-Keys during their first tour, Cropper was given the keys to the Stax studio and became, along with company co-owner Jim Stewart, the label's de facto A& R man and engineer.
For the next decade Cropper's career was wed to Stax. Booker T. & the MG's were born when Cropper, keyboardist Booker T. Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg were hired for a session in late summer 1962 at the then-fledgling Stax Records. When the rockabilly singer the quartet was ostensibly hired to accompany finished early, the four musicians whiled away their time jamming on a blues. Unbeknownst to any of them, Stax co-owner and engineer Jim Stewart turned on a tape deck. Satisfied with the results, the four newly constituted band members worked up a second side which came to be known as Green Onions. A dynasty had begun.
Green Onions became an instrumental anthem for both black and white America, peaking at number One on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues charts and number three on the pop charts. Mo' Onions soon followed, as did Soul Dressing, Boot-leg, My Sweet Potato, Hip Hug-Her, Groovin', Soul Limbo, Hang 'Em High, Time Is Tight, Mrs. Robinson, Something and Melting Pot.
Steve left Stax in 1970 to start up, with Jerry Williams and former Mar- Key Ronnie Stoots, the Trans-Maximus (TMI) recording studio and record company. In the first half of the 1970s, Cropper produced and played on sessions recorded at TMI or Ardent by the likes of Poco, Jeff Beck, Jose Feliciano, John Prine and Tower Of Power. Later production successes included Tower of Power's 1978 LP We Came To Play and John Cougar's 1980 release Nothing Matters And What If It Did.
In 1977, the MG's briefly reunited to record the Universal Language LP for Asylum. Shortly thereafter Cropper and Dunn joined Levon Helm's RCO All-Stars and then received a call from John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd which resulted in the formation of the Blues Brothers Band. The original incarnation of the Blues Brothers recorded three albums, including the number one Briefcase Full of BIues, and made a hilarious eponymous-titled feature film.
When the Blues Brothers ceased active after the passing of Belushi in the spring of 1982, Cropper continued to be in constant demand as both a producer and session guitarist. He also found time to resume his solo career, recording two albums for MCA in 1980 ( Playin' My Thang) and 1982 ( Night After Night). His first solo album, With a Little Help From My Friends, had been recorded for Stax back in 1969.
During the whole period of the MG's glorious renaissance, Cropper has also been busy fulfilling his commitments to The Blues Brothers Band, who have issued two recent CD's: Live In Montreaux, on WEA International in 1990, and Live From Chicago's House of Blues, on the House Of Blues label in 1997.
With John Goodman taking the place of the late John Belushi, The Blues Brothers' second feature film, Blues Brothers 2000, was released in February 1998.
Cropper continues to be an in-demand musician and producer. His string-bending talents being most recently showcased on the latest Paul Simon, Ringo Starr, Buddy Guy (Heavy Love) and Johnny Lang (Wander This World) albums. He also contributed his talents to efforts from Elton John and Steppenwolf.
In the producer's chair, he has most recently piloted Joe Louis Walker's last three albums: 1995's The Blues Of The Month Club, 1997's Great Guitars and Preacher And The President (Verve).
Finally, Croppers multiple talents are routinely called upon for movie soundtracks, such as John Carpenter's 1998 blockbuster Vampires.
In addition to his commitments to the MG's and The Blues Brothers, Steve Cropper has started his own label (Play It, Steve! Records), whose inaugural release, entitled Play It, Steve! was released in February 1998. Perhaps the ultimate testament to Steve Cropper's immense contribution to popular music over the last four decades was his ranking by England's Mojo Magazine in 1996 as the number two guitarist of all-time (Jimi Hendrix was number one). And in 2003, Rolling Stone magazine readers voted him among the Top 100 Guitar Players of all-time.
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