#steve-cropper

#steve-cropper

Steve Cropper, who died Wednesday at 84, is not a household name, but the music he made is some of the most familiar in American pop. The twanging guitar line that opens Sam & Dave's "Soul Man"-that's him. Same for the chugging riff on Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" and the chopping rhythm on the soul instrumental " Green Onions." He's the man who finished mixing "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay," adding the sounds of gulls and waves after his friend Otis Redding, with whom he wrote the song, died in a plane crash.