To anyone who knows the roots and branches of American music, the passing of Steve Cropper in December 2025 was seismic. As guitarist, songwriter, producer and engineer – not just for the iconic Stax record label but on a forest of sessions and solo releases – the Tennessee soul man was the DNA that coursed through the post-war era, his fabled right hand setting the pace of rock ‘n’ roll for 60-plus years. “Words fail me in describing his impact,” wrote Joe Bonamassa. “He was on the session when history was made. He came up with the parts we all studied. He produced the records we all worshipped.”

The wider world assumed 2024’s star-dusted, Grammy-nominated Friendlytown was the full stop on this most seminal of careers. Little did we know that he was already working on new material. “Making music was Steve's greatest joy,” explains Jon Tiven, the acclaimed songwriter/producer who first met Cropper in the early-’70s, became a close friend and helped ignite his post-millennial solo career. “Steve was so encouraged by Friendlytown. He was adamant he wanted to do another record.”

Appropriately for an album whose title references the guitarist’s most famous co-write – Otis Redding’s 1967 standard (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay – Watching The Tide saw Cropper roll back the years. Writing alongside Tiven and Midnight Hour vocalist Roger C. Reale – then tracking at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio C with a crack-squad band including Ana Grosh (vocals), Nioshi Jackson (drums), engineer Eddie Gore (keys/percussion), and a wishlist of guitar heroes (Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons, Brian May, Ronnie Wood) – the 83-year-old sounds ageless and energised. 

“This was his element,” nods Tiven, who also handled bass and some lead guitar on the record. “Once he got in the studio, it was like falling out of bed. I told him: ‘Don't worry about anything except sounding like yourself. Sign your name to these songs’.”

And nobody had a signature quite like Steve Cropper. Never a showy player, the Missouri-born, Memphis-raised guitarist was soon prized as the greatest engine-room on the Southern scene, the push/pull of his rhythm work as undeniable as a locomotive piston. Just as vital, Cropper was a walking encyclopaedia of his adopted home-city’s musical forms – blues, soul, R&B, gospel – and this served him well as the trusted first lieutenant of Stax co-founder Jim Stewart and cornerstone of the label’s house band, Booker T. & The M.G.’s. “Working with Steve was easy,” nods Tiven, “because he knew how to poke the best out of everybody.”  

Cropper’s work for the Memphis label soundtracked the ’60s, from his joyous string-bends on Sam & Dave’s Soul Man to his powerhouse backing on the formidable Albert King’s Born Under A Bad Sign. But as Tiven points out, he never stopped moving. “The records with Otis Redding for me are just divine. Even the ones he didn't write, he put his stamp on them. She Put The Hurt On Me and Don’t Mess With Cupid are two of my favourites. But then, his work on Jeff Beck’s Orange album (1972) is fantastic, and he enjoyed himself so much playing on Frank Black’s Honeycomb album, which I produced (2005). He was just so versatile, such a master.”     

Even for a writer who left his thumbprint on the great American songbook, the twelve new tracks on Watching The Tide rank amongst Cropper’s best. The album fades up on Tandoori Chicken: not just an irresistibly funky tone-setter but a knowing nod to Green Onions (the deathless 1962 single that established Booker T. And The M.G.’s as stars in their own right). “We’d gone out for an Indian lunch,” remembers Tiven, “and back at the studio, I put a sitar on that instrumental and said, ‘Is it okay if we call it Tandoori Chicken?’ A big smile came to Steve’s face…”

The tough Southern-smoked blues of Ticket First started with a joke and ended up with Cropper and Clapton riffing nose-to-nose. “I told Eric, ‘Man, you just turned that song inside-out – I think we’re gonna have to give you a writer’s credit,” recalls Tiven of the legendary British guitarist’s transcendent solo. “And Eric said, ‘Well, anything to get my name next to Steve Cropper’s…’”

The A-list cameos continue with the valedictory ballad, My Angels Are Calling, featuring Brian May and Billy Gibbons (“Brian is singing from Steve's point of view,” says Tiven of the Queen man’s touching lyric, “looking back over his life and his road. It’s very powerful”). Until Now makes stellar use of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’s stinging slide, before Tiven himself takes lead guitar for the brassy strut of Blood From A Stone and Here & Gone. The latter is also one of the showcases for upcoming vocalist Ana Grosh (who features prominently on Stand Right Here too). “We met Ana at the Grammys and I heard immediately that this 21-year-old had something,” recalls Tiven. “We brought her in to do backing vocals but decided to make her a bigger part of the record. She added that extra personality, because she’s a sassy broad!”

Watching The Tide’s second half loses no momentum. Try the gallows-humour funk of It’s Gonna Get Worse or the golden sundown pulse of Down & Out, before Tip Off To The Rip Off fuses its stalking groove to a biting message, and House Of Cards reminds us of Cropper’s mastery of an upbeat blues bounce. “That’s a strong message song, but it just puts a smile on everyone’s face,” says Tiven. “That was mostly Steve. It’s amazing that a man of that age can lead the charge for a record that's so vital.”

He might have been indomitable as ever in the studio, but as Tiven and Gore set to work on post-production, nobody could deny that Cropper was running out of time. Yet even as the great man slowly bowed to his medical issues in late 2025, he clung on to hear the mixes of Watching The Tide (10 of the 11 tracks were completed before his death, with only My Angels Are Calling still a work-in-progress).

“I finished the mixes about a week-and-a-half before Steve passed and we brought a CD to him at the medical facility,” remembers Tiven. “He called me the night before he passed to tell me how much he loved it. He was playing it for everyone who came to visit him, telling them it was the best record he’d ever made.”

It’s a huge statement for a musical colossus who towered over the rock ‘n’ roll age. Yet to play this posthumous release is to hear an all-time-great still at the top of his game, blending the burning passion of youth with the wisdom of an old master. Steve Cropper might have left us, but with Watching The Tide, the ripples continue to spread. “I know this record provided great joy to Steve in the last year of his life,” says Tiven. “And I’m so glad he was able to have one last great creative burst that was so strong…”