Steve Cropper wants Tim Montana on a track.

He’s not sure whose ax it was, but believes it belonged to one of those legends — Billy F Gibbons of ZZ Top.

The setting was the historic RCA studios in Nashville.

Gibbons and Steve Cropper, both inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, spontaneously recruited Montana to play guitar on one track of Cropper’s latest album, “Friendlytown,” due for release in August.

Montana knew Cropper from years before but had just stopped in with Gibbons and planned to be a fly on the wall as Cropper and Gibbons recorded. (“Queen” guitar virtuoso Brian May also played on the album.)

“It was happenstance. They threw this song at me, with a weird key and chord changes,” Montana recalled recently. “They hit ‘Record’ and said, ‘You’ll be fine.’

“My fingers were trembling the whole time with those two staring at me,” he said, laughing.

Cropper, now in his 80s, played guitar for Booker T. and the MG’s when he and other members of the racially-integrated group were the house band in the 1960s for Stax Records, originally based in Memphis. The band provided studio backing music for soul artists such as Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave and Otis Redding.

Cropper co-wrote Redding’s signature hit “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” released after Redding’s death in 1967 in a plane crash.

Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” released in 1967, features the soul shout, “Play it, Steve!” referencing Cropper’s playing.  

Years later, comedian John Belushi repeated the invocation when Cropper accompanied the “Blues Brothers” on Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s frenetic version of “Soul Man.”

A list of Cropper’s musical collaborations stretches long and deep, ranging from B.B. King to John Lennon, from Bob Dylan to Wilson Pickett, from Mavis Staples to Paul Simon.

Given Cropper and Gibbons’ storied musical careers, being directed, without warning, to play guitar on a “Friendlytown” track jangled the nerves a bit.

“Half of me was terrified,” Montana said.

Montana played on the track “You Can’t Refuse,” described by “Rock & Blues Muse” as an “ultra-catchy, Bo Diddley-styled romp featuring slithery blues licks from Tim Montana.”

Montana and Cropper first met when Montana attended a Halloween party at Cropper’s house in Nashville. Later, Montana met Gibbons, and the two of them, along with other partners, bought the Wise River Club in rural Wise River in August 2023.

Since then, Montana, who grew up in an off-the-grid double wide in Elk Park, has helped co-manage the increasingly popular club and worked from Wise River to shepherd his music career. Often described in years past as a country-rock-singer-songwriter and guitarist, Montana’s most recent work is moving toward hard rock.

Montana became interested in the blues during the time when he was in seventh or eighth grade at East Middle School in Butte, he said. He owned a compact disc of mixed blues and once saw B. B. King perform in Bozeman.

Playing on the new album by Steve Cropper & The Midnight Hour ended up being a memorable experience, he said.

“It was really, really cool,” Montana said. “The engineer made me sound good, somehow.”  

Meanwhile, Montana, 39, is set to notch another milestone in his recording career. On July 12, he releases his latest album, titled “Savage,” and then heads out for a national tour later in the month.