Steve Cropper, member of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84

Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The artist, who performed on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, passed away this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the greatest studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent impacted countless people around the world," his family said in a statement.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they added.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.

"He's such a good human," Gore said. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure."

A Storied Musical Path

Named the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper first found employment at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, comprising keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to historical accounts, he was "integral to the majority of record put out by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."