Late Guitar Legend Steve Cropper’s Love For Bluegrass Music
When guitar legend Steve Cropper died a few months ago, the response from musicians of all stripes was unanimous. Cropper was one of the best guitarists of all time, was at the heart of the Memphis Stax sound, and was one of the important pieces of why Booker T and the MGs were such an important and influential band. His appearances in the original Blues Brothers lit up the screen and brought soul music to a new generation.
Cropper was praised by musicians of all genres after his passing, including those who play bluegrass music, because of his masterful rhythm playing and the desire to serve the song and the groove.
Music journalist Crag Havighurst, winner of the IBMA Writer Of The Year award, recipient of the IBMA Liner Notes Of the Year honor, and author of the new book Musicality For Modern Humans, describes Cropper’s legacy this way. “He became one of a select few people to have been enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Musicians Hall of Fame,” said Havighurst, in a post for WMOT Roots Radio 89.5. “He was also a two-time Grammy Award winner. Mojo Magazine selected him as the second greatest guitarist in rock and roll history, behind only Jimi Hendrix. The sharp contrast of their approaches says a lot about Cropper’s gifts. Never a showy, dazzling soloist, Cropper made his reputation through mastery of taste, timing, and tone.”
Another cool attribute of Steve Cropper’s legendary musical mind is that he appreciated, noticed, and loved bluegrass music. We learned this from singer, songwriter, and bluegrass chart topper Irene Kelley.
Kelley’s latest bluegrass album is called Snow White Memories, and it includes the single “4th Of July In My Hometown,” which was written by Kelley, her daughter Justyna Kelley, and Steve Cropper. After all, Cropper did write the legendary song “Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay,” co-wrote “In The Midnight Hour” with Wilson Pickett, and he also wrote the landmark instrumental “Green Onions,” so his compositional chops were real.
Kelley’s musical collaboration with Cropper began with her 2019 album Benny’s Repair Shop. They not only co-wrote for the project, but Cropper added some guitar licks to the recordings as well.
Photo by Justyna Kelley
As it turns out, both Kelley and Cropper came to bluegrass music from other genres. At first, after writing songs that were performed by Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Trisha Yearwood, Bradley Walker, Claire Lynch, Little Big Town, Rhonda Vincent, Will Kimbrough, Deanie Richardson, Alan Jackson, and more, Kelley was on the path to becoming a country music singer as well as a songwriter. She did not grow up with bluegrass music; however, one day it entered her life serendipitously while she was still living in her hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
“My grandfather moved from Poland to Crabtree, Pennsylvania, by himself when he was 17 years old, and he began working in the Westmoreland County Coal Mine,” said Kelley. “He never saw his family again, ever, though he did escape the oppression of the communism of the day. He met my grandma when she was 15, and they got married and eventually raised eight kids on their farm. She was from Poland as well, coming over with a brother and a sister. My grandparents did not meet, however, until they were both on Ellis Island. My Dad’s family came from Italy. He was born here in America, but his sister and his parents, my grandparents, were born in south-central Italy in Cercemaggiore in the province of Campobasso. They settled in Greensburg.”
One day, some visitors from The Mountain State appeared. “I was playing music locally when some traveling musicians came through town one day,” said Kelley. “There was a store located in downtown Latrobe called Jack’s Music, and the owner was from the Huntington-Charleston area of West Virginia. One day, Jack put on a little bluegrass festival, and he brought in David Morris from Clay County, West Virginia, who was a member of the Morris Brothers. I got to hear and see these West Virginia musicians play bluegrass live, which was a pretty big deal for me at the time. That happened in 1979. After that, I learned how to play bluegrass music, got a guitar, and started to write new bluegrass songs.”
Kelley moved to Nashville with a country music career as the goal, much in the vein of the experiences of Rhonda Vincent and Donna Ulisse. After years of the Nashville grind, however, she decided to return to her love of bluegrass music when Terry Herd encouraged her to do a 100% bluegrass recording. By the time she was to begin work on her Mountain Fever Records release, Benny’s TV Repair years later, Steve Cropper had entered the picture.
“Steve was good friends with my daughter Justyna,” said Kelley. “They were partners at RCA Studios and ran a production company together called Sneaky Animals. Because of that, we saw Steve all the time at parties and at dinner parties and that sort of thing. At one point, I said to Justyna, ‘Let’s see if Steve wants to write a song with us.’ So, we got together with him one day, and we wrote a song together. Then, Justyna said, ‘Steve, Mom is recording a bluegrass record, and we need songs for it,’ and Steve said, ‘Well, I don’t have any bluegrass chops, but do I have bluegrass thoughts.’”
That simple quote about bluegrass music by Cropper was not only brilliant, it also reflected his previous notice and appreciation of bluegrass music that began earlier in his life. “He loved bluegrass,” said Kelley. “He listened to a lot of it while growing up in rural Missouri. When we knew him, he listened to Bluegrass Junction all of the time on Sirius/XM. Steve would text us and say, ‘Hey, I heard Irene on Bluegrass Junction. It sounded great.’ That made him listen to the station even more. He loved bluegrass music, and we even got him to come in and play some beautiful parts on my album, and it just really was a lot of fun having him do that. We knew that he wasn’t doing well, but the family wanted to keep that quiet, so we respected that. He is deeply missed by us and so many others, but he will live on through his amazing music.”
Steve Cropper died in Nashville on December 3, 2025, at 84 years of age.
Currently, Kelley is performing with her talented daughters under the band name Women Of Kelley. More information can be found at www.irenekelley.com.
