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Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The artist, who played on and collaborated on writing 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.

Considered among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

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

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not released at this time.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating fresh material.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, comprising 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 thought of myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same phrase twice."

As well as 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 his official biography, he was "integral to nearly all record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would literally 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."