By Hans Ebert
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The song “Respect” is such an amazing history lesson. Written in 1965 by Otis Redding for Speedo Sims, what first drew me into the song was the guitar playing of Steve Cropper. I bought any recording that featured him. Was he white or black? Black, I thought when things like this mattered. Times change. Maybe. We grow up. We embrace the music. We go back and learn where it all came from. It’s a rainbow connection.
Those were the days when some of us bought records because of the session guys involved. Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Booker T Jones. Jones was one of the first musicians I interviewed as a young journalist. It was at a dinner at the Aberdeen Floating Restaurant. He had been married to Priscilla Coolridge, and here I was sitting next to the man who had given the world the instrumental “Green Onions” and released as Booker T and the MGs- drummer Al Jackson, Dunn and Steve Cropper. I was with greatness.
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