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Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The musician, who performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed recently in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in the history of soul music, the group Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

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

"Steve was a cherished guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent touched generations around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment at the Stax label 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a rhythm player," Cropper remarked 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 refuse to play the same lick twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to historical accounts, he was "involved in virtually every record issued by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would often spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."