Steve Cropper’s posthumous album Watching The Tide is out now through Provogue / Artone Label Group, accompanied by the release of the deeply moving ‘My Angels Are Calling’, featuring Brian May and Billy Gibbons.
The track brings together three of rock and soul’s most recognisable guitar names, although May takes an unexpected role at its centre, delivering the lead vocal as well as contributing to the writing.
Written from Cropper’s point of view, ‘My Angels Are Calling’ looks back across a remarkable life in music and towards what might come next. May wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music, with ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons stepping forward for the closing solo.
For an album made before Cropper’s death in December 2025, the song has taken on a significance nobody involved could have originally planned.
“Brian is singing from Steve’s point of view,” explains songwriter and producer Jon Tiven. “Looking back over his life and his road. It’s very powerful.”
Brian May pays tribute to Steve Cropper
May had already been working with Cropper and the band when news of the guitarist’s death changed how he heard the song.
“We were all incredibly sad at Steve’s passing, and I was already collaborating with Steve and his band on a track for this album,” says May.
“As soon as Steve was gone, I could hear something different in my head, a tribute to Cropper himself.”
May imagined what Cropper might have been thinking as he reached the end of his life, drawing on the optimism that ran through so much of his music.
“In the song, the angels are calling, and it seems to me that, along with being grateful for his wonderful life, he would imagine heaven to be something like going back to sitting on the dock of the bay.”
The reference is particularly poignant. Cropper co-wrote Otis Redding’s 1967 classic ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay’, and the title Watching The Tide itself nods back towards that defining moment in his career.
“Having Billy Gibbons play a spectacular solo for me is the final wonderful bonus to this experience,” adds May. “The whole band did a terrific job, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”
One final gathering of guitar greats
Watching The Tide was created with longtime collaborator Jon Tiven and Midnight Hour vocalist Roger C. Reale, with sessions taking place at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio C.
Cropper was joined by vocalist Ana Grosh, drummer Nioshi Jackson and keyboard player and engineer Eddie Gore, while the guest list reads like a roll call of rock guitar history.
Alongside May and Gibbons, the album features Eric Clapton and Ronnie Wood.
Rolling Stones guitarist Wood appears on ‘Until Now’, adding slide guitar after quickly accepting Tiven’s invitation to contribute.
Clapton appears on the Southern blues-rock track ‘Ticket First’, trading guitar ideas with Cropper on a recording that Tiven remembers particularly fondly.
After hearing Clapton’s contribution, he joked that the guitarist had changed the song enough to deserve a writing credit.
Clapton’s response was simple: “Well, anything to get my name next to Steve Cropper’s…”
A final chapter from a soul music giant
Few guitarists left a mark on American popular music quite like Steve Cropper.
As a guitarist, songwriter, producer and engineer at Stax Records, his economical playing became an essential part of the Memphis soul sound. His work stretched far beyond his own recordings, helping shape music that would influence generations of blues, rock, soul and R&B players.
He was also responsible for co-writing songs that became part of the fabric of popular music, including ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay’.
Yet Watching The Tide does not sound like an artist simply looking backwards.
Recorded when Cropper was 83, the album captures a musician still writing, recording and surrounding himself with players who understood exactly what his deceptively simple guitar style had meant to modern music.
‘My Angels Are Calling’ now gives the album an emotional centre nobody could have foreseen when the sessions began.
With May singing as though stepping into Cropper’s shoes, Gibbons providing the final guitar statement and Cropper’s own unmistakable playing still running through the track, it serves as both a new song and a fitting farewell.
Watching The Tide by Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour is available now through Provogue / Artone Label Group.
