Jimi Hendrix was hardly known for the kind of minimalism that has defined Steve Cropper’s legend. But the fiery improvisationalist nevertheless counted Cropper as a key early influence. And over the years, a 1964 jam session has risen to the level mythology.
“Jimi was in his infancy at that particular time,” Hendrix bassist Billy Cox says in a new talk with the Desert Sun. “Steve and (his band) Booker T and the MGs were (producing many of) the R&B songs being played at that time, and we copied that before we came into our own persona.”
One of Cropper’s final shows with Otis Redding, in fact, found Hendrix on the bill. Booker T. and the MGs and Hendrix were both featured in the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. They toured with the Isley Brothers in 1965, too. Prior to that, the younger guitarist famously sought Cropper out, when a tour with Sam Cooke made its way to Memphis. Only it almost didn’t happen.
Seems visitors were often stopping by at Stax Records, fans mostly. Cropper wasn’t often free from a rigorous schedule of sideman and producing work. Typically, they waited for a while, then wandered off. Except Hendrix. He spent the day cooling his heels, and was still there — waiting across the street at a local diner — when Cropper finally finished the day’s work. Cropper went over and met the young man, connecting over Hendrix’s sideman role on a Don Covay record called “Have Mercy.”
“I said ‘You played on that?!,” Cropper once remembered, “’cause that was one a my favorite records. That lick that’s in there, that funky little intro lick. So, we ate and I said, ‘Why don’t you come over to the studio?'”
Unfortunately, no recording exists from that day, Cropper confirmed — only a lasting bond that Hendrix spoke glowingly about, as well. “Steve Cropper turned me on millions of years ago,” Hendrix once said, “and I turned him on millions of years ago too — but because of different songs. He turned me on to a lot of things.”
Hendrix has, of course, returned to the news with the premiere of Jimi: All Is By My Side, a biopic starring Andre 3000. But, in some ways, it’s like he never really went away. Previously unreleased recordings still trickle out, and Cox’s multi-artist Experience Hendrix Tour continues.
All of it gives fans a chance to reflect on Hendrix’s impact some 44 years after his early death, and on the old R&B influences like Cropper that predated and then shaped his genre-shifting sound. “Along with Steve, there was Howlin’ Wolf Hubert Sumlin and all of that,” Cox says of Hendrix. “He was like a sponge. If he heard you, he had you.”
Cox, who shares a Nashville base with Cropper, performed with Hendrix at Woodstock, as well as 1970’s Band of Gypsys and a number of those posthumous releases. The 24-show Experience Hendrix Tour runs through October 18, 2014, with future dates centered in California after tonight’s stop at Mesa, Arizona. Cropper, meanwhile, is headed to the UK for concerts with the Animals later this month.
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Nice article. Thanks. Never knew that was Jimi Hendrix on the Don Covay song.