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Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The musician, who played on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in the city of Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the group the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted generations around the world," his family stated in a message.

"While we grieve the loss of a family man and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

An Illustrious Journey

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

A year later, the MGs came together, comprising keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 rhythm player," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They are reluctant to repeat the same lick twice."

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

According to his official biography, he was "involved in virtually every record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

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