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The legendary guitarist 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 performed on and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not disclosed.

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

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

An Illustrious Journey

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

A year later, the MGs were founded, featuring keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 rhythm player," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I take pride in 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 lick twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and besides 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 "integral to the majority of record issued by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would truly spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a very hectic schedule."