Steve Cropper
: I just pick up a guitar, plug in, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I do say this to my guitars – ‘If you don’t perform tonight, you’re going to be firewood in the morning.’ And it always works!
When we first worked with Albert King, he was a blues guy who had these old blues songs that we took in a different direction and they started hitting,” Cropper says proudly. “Born Under a Bad Sign and Crosscut Saw – I’ll never forget when we cut those – holy mackerel. Albert knew they were something else. Plus, I don’t think Albert had ever really received a real royalty check. He’d gotten screwed out of everything he’d ever done. He was one of those guys that grew up not trusting anybody, because he’d been stolen from all his life. Promoters and club owners and record company folks robbed him. But when he came to Stax, all of a sudden, he got paid for what he did, and for the records that he sold. He was head over heels about that. When he got his checks from Stax, it changed his whole life. He used to come to Duck and me and say, ‘When we going to make another record?’ Because all of a sudden he was making good money for the first time in his life!”
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