Guitarist Steve Cropper still haunted by Redding

NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) For Guitarist Steve Cropper, the day the music died was not February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly died. It was an icy December 10, 1967, when the plane carrying a 26-year-old Otis Redding went down in a Wisconsin lake.

Cropper was lead guitarist for Booker T&the MGs a role that won him a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award this month backing Redding and others at Stax Records in the golden years of soul.

''When we heard about it, we were between planes in Indianapolis.

We were sitting on an icy runway trying to get off the ground,'' Cropper told Reuters at a recent celebration of 50 years of Memphis soul music.

''It was icy that morning, the whole of middle America was iced in,'' he said. Songwriter David Porter called home to tell his wife the plane was delayed, and she said she had heard about Redding's death on the radio.

''David came back and I swear to God he was as white as that piece of paper right there,'' he said of Porter, who is black.

''I'M GONNA WAIT 'TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR'' Now a hulk of a man with hands that seem too big to coax subtlety from a guitar, Cropper, 65, was reared on country music in West Plains, Missouri (''I grew up on the Grand Ole Oprey''). He moved to Memphis as a boy, where he found rhythm and blues.

At Booker T&the MGs, Stax's house band, Cropper worked from 1961 to 1970 with the likes of Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Isaac Hayes.

The intro to Sam&Dave's ''Soul Man'' is vintage Cropper, while his writing credits include the classics ''(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay,'' for which he won a Grammy with Redding, ''Knock on Wood'' and ''In the Midnight Hour.'' When Stax's heyday waned and soul was overtaken by funk, disco and hip hop, Cropper moved to Nashville. He is in demand as a producer, arranger and performer with everyone from Elton John to Buddy Guy. He was in the John Belushi/Dan Aykroyd movie ''The Blues Brothers'' and toured and recorded with their band.

''THAT'S WHEN MY LOVE COMES TUMBLIN' DOWN'' But after two Grammys, dozens of hit recordings and songs, Cropper's thoughts always return to Redding, ''The Big O.'' ''Otis? Oh my God. Otis was unique. If you took a fruit jar and you put Sam Cooke in there with Little Richard, and shook it up, you'd come out with Otis Redding.

''The actual physical memory runs through my mind all the time,'' he recalls of the first time he met Redding.

''We were standing outside the record shop, outside the (Stax) studio and this car pulls up with Georgia plates. And this big tall guy gets out the driver's seat, takes the keys and walks around the back of the car, opens the trunk and starts getting out amps and microphones.'' Redding pestered drummer Al Jackson for an audition and Jackson asked Cropper to listen.

''So he comes down and I say: 'Play something, whatever you want to do. And he said 'I don't play piano, I play a little gut-tar.

That's what he said. So I played piano and he went: 'These arms of mine...' And hairs and goose bumps stood up on my arms.'' Cropper fetched Stax Records co-founder Jim Stewart. ''Jim heard him and said: 'We've got to cut this right now.'' ''We cut it, 'These Arms of Mine' and the next morning ... we cut a B-side called 'Hey Baby,''' said Cropper. ''That was Otis Redding, That was his first record and he had 17 hits in a row.'' Reuters SY DB0924