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

The guitar virtuoso, who played on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the finest studio bands in soul music, the group the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and performed on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent impacted countless people 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 be remembered through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not released at this time.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.

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

A Prolific Career

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

A year later, the MGs were formed, featuring organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded 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 past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff 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 helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to his official biography, he was "a part of virtually every record released by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would often spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."