🔗 Share this article Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of the famed band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84 Steve Cropper served as a key member of the in-house studio band of the seminal Memphis label Stax Records. Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84. The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville. Considered among the finest studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions. Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man. "Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent touched 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 added. A specific cause was not immediately known. A friend, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs. "He's such a good human," Gore said. "We were blessed to have him, for sure." Steve Cropper, pictured on the right, with peers Eddie Floyd and Sheryl Crow. An Illustrious Journey Named the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment 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 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. "I've always seen myself as a rhythm player," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same riff twice." As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood. According to available information, he was "involved in the majority of record released by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970". "We would often spend long days in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists signed to the label, so we had a pretty busy schedule."