Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour will release Watching The Tide on 28 August via Provogue/Artone Label Group. The album featured appearances by Eric Clapton, Brian May, Ronnie Wood and Billy Gibbons.
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.
His previous album, 2024’s star-dusted, Grammy-nominated Friendlytown formed another part of this most seminal of careers. “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 was involved in his post-millennial solo career.
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.
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 get 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 (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 shows that the musician never stood still and has a wealth of music to share with the world. 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).
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 along with Stand Right Here features vocalist Ana Grosh.
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, the great man’s heatlh became his main focus as late 2025 came into view. However he was able to listen to the mixes of Watching The Tide before his sad passing.
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 Watching The Tide, indicates that there is more still to hear from him.
Tracklisting:
1. Tandoori Chicken
2. Ticket First ft. Eric Clapton
3. My Angels Are Calling ft. Brian May & Billy F. Gibbons
4. Until Now ft. Ronnie Wood
5. Blood From A Stone
6. Here & Gone ft. Ana Grosh
7. It’s Gonna Get Worse
8. Down & Out
9. Stand Right Here ft. Billy F. Gibbons & Ana Grosh
10. Tipoff To The Ripoff
11. House of Cards
12. Tandoori Chicken Part 2
