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

The musician, who performed on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed recently in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the greatest studio bands in soul and R&B, the quartet the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired musician, songwriter, and producer whose profound talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not disclosed.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Ranked the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, comprising keyboardist 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 rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, 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 prolific songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "a part of 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 a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."