Booker T. & the MGs—(left to right) second bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr.,
Steve Cropper, and organist Booker T. Jones—in a circa-1965 promotional shot. Photo courtesy of
the Stax Museum of American Soul Music
*Artist500series
pictured
Tommy“O”
staffguitaristfor
GeorgeLopez-
LopezTonight
knowshisfrequencies
. . . the next morning, first thing
when I got up, I took the buckle
off this old belt and stitched it
into my guitar strap to make
it longer so I could play like
Lowman Pauling.
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over and played on a multi-artist project
celebrating the music and legacy of the “ 5”
Royales. Based in Winston Salem, North
Carolina, the 1950s R&B group had hits
with songs that would become even bigger
hits for others, such as “Think” (which
James Brown and the Fabulous Flames
took to No. 7 on the R&B charts) and
“Dedicated to the One I Love” (which
went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart for the Mamas & the Papas in 1967).
Cropper was enamored when he first
heard the band on the radio, and when he
caught them live in Memphis he became
a fervent fan of the group’s showy guitar
player, Lowman “Pete” Pauling. On the
Stax hero’s new tribute album, Dedicated,
Cropper pays heartfelt homage to Pauling
alongside such notables as B.B. King,
Sharon Jones, Lucinda Williams, Steve
Winwood, and Delbert McClinton.
We recently got to shake Cropper’s
mighty hand at a Greek diner in Nashville,
where he’s lived for two decades. There,
over eggs and coffee, he reminisced and
caught us up on life as a hard-working,
award-winning guitar legend.
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Make-up courtesy MAC Cosmetics
How did the “ 5” Royales originally come
to your attention?
Basically, through the radio—there was
one particular song these guys did, a song
called “Think.” I went to a school in
Memphis called Messick, and it was a big
dance school. We all loved to dance. So
this song came about, and it had all these
guitar riffs in it. It really got my attention. And I said, “That’s a song I want to
learn.” Prior to that, I’d been learning Bo
Diddley things and so forth. But Lowman
got my attention because of the way he
played rhythm.
