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The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The artist, who performed on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the best studio bands in soul and R&B, the group Booker T & the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.

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

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a loved one and companion, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they continued.

A cause of death was not released at this time.

An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new music.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, consisting of keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 guitarist," Cropper remarked in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff twice."

Not only was he 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 virtually every record put out by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day 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."