Steve Cropper

634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)

Steve Cropper · Have You Seen Her? · 1966

What Makes This Sound Unique

Call-and-response soul guitar — Cropper plays a conversational role against Wilson Pickett's vocal, inserting short fill phrases between the vocal lines. The Telecaster tone is warm and round in the fills, bright and cutting on the rhythm chops.

  1. 1Fender Telecaster (neck and bridge pickups alternated)
  2. 2Fender Twin Reverb
Gain / Volume2
Bass5
Mid7
Treble7
Reverb3

Slight reverb for studio space — the Stax sound includes a degree of room ambience. The amp is always clean; the dynamics are entirely pick-hand controlled.

How to Play It

Pickup switching mid-song for tonal variety — neck for warm fills behind the vocal, bridge for the chop rhythm pattern. A technique Cropper used constantly across the Stax catalog.

Achievable With

Telecaster with good pickup switching → Fender Blues Junior or Deluxe Reverb at moderate volume → control tone through pickup selection and pick angle.

Adapt to My Amp

Other Song Rigs

Green Onions

Green Onions · 1962

The most famous organ-guitar instrumental in American music — Cropper's Telecast

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In the Midnight Hour

In the Midnight Hour · 1965

The Wilson Pickett classic that Cropper co-wrote in a Miami hotel room — the Sta

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(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

The Dock of the Bay · 1968

Co-written by Cropper and Otis Redding in days before Redding's death — Cropper'

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Soul Man

Soul Man · 1967

The sound of Stax Records — Cropper's Telecaster through a clean Fender amp prod

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Knock on Wood

Knock on Wood · 1966

Cutting and percussive — Cropper's Telecaster riff on this Eddie Floyd track is

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