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

The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the greatest backing bands in soul music, the four-piece band the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family said in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not released at this time.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always thought of myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They are reluctant to repeat the same phrase twice."

In addition to being 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 nearly all record issued by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would often spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."