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

The musician, who contributed to and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died recently in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the best supporting groups in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of 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 immense talent inspired countless people around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a family man and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they continued.

A cause of death was not disclosed.

An associate, 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 lucky to have him, for sure."

A Storied Musical Path

Voted the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, consisting of organist 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 considered myself to be a rhythm player," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "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 riff 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 "integral to nearly all record released by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."