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The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The musician, who played on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the four-piece band Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we grieve the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not disclosed.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, consisting of organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

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

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

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

According to available information, he was "a part of the majority of record issued by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would often spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a very hectic schedule."