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

The artist, who performed on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and performed on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent touched countless people around the world," his family expressed in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they added.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Named the second-best 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 came together, comprising organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They are reluctant to repeat the same phrase twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative 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 "a part of the majority of record put out by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

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