Hearing someone update your song must bring up a range of emotions. There is, no doubt, some sense of pride in knowing that another artist saw the value of the original work. But then there are the inevitable changes that come with cover versions.
Steve Cropper has no such reservations about the Black Crowes’ take on “Hard to Handle,” originally released on 1968’s Cropper-produced posthumous recording The Immortal Otis Redding.
“They threw it off time by half a beat, but that’s OK,” Steve Cropper tells James Calemine of Swampland. “I always thought they were good. They had a lot of passion and a lot of energy. They did a good job. Anytime I hear a remake of a Stax song and it does well, I’m a happy camper.”
In fact, the Black Crowes’ version, from their 1990 debut Shake Your Money Maker, went to No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, outstripping Otis Redding’s original peak of just No. 51 on those same pop charts. “Hard to Handle” was a Top 40 R&B charter for Redding, as well.
In way, Steve Cropper says he wasn’t surprised by the Black Crowes’ success. After all, they had a special connection back to Cropper and the rest of Booker T. and the MGs, the group who backed Otis Redding on those original 1967 sessions.
“Most people don’t know that [the late MGs bassist] Duck Dunn’s son Jeff was the Crowes’ sound guy for a tour,” Cropper notes. “They not only had a passion for the sound, but they had someone who grew up with the sound on the road with them. That can never hurt.”
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