Today we would like to wish a great friend of SMILER‘s Steve Cropper a very happy 80th birthday …
Following the release of his album Smiler, Rod moved his recording operations to America and recorded an album [Atlantic Crossing] with a line up of all American musicians. He had always dreamed of working with the musicians that had backed his heroes on the Stax record label, Warner Brothers contacted producer Tom Dowd who told Rod he could get those musicians including Steve Cropper the greatest soul guitarist of all time, this was the start of a collaboration that was to span 3 albums, you can read the full story of Rod’s work with Steve in SMILER‘s interview with Steve from 2011 in Issue 88 of SMILER but for now lets dig out ‘Tonight’s The Night’ or maybe ‘Stone Cold Sober’ and wish Steve all the very best as he celebrates this milestone birthday..
Best Wishes Legend