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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The artist, who performed on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the finest studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the house 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 performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired countless people around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we grieve the loss of a loved one and companion, we find comfort knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

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

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

A Prolific Career

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, consisting of 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 guitarist," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same lick twice."

Not only was he 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 "integral to the majority of record released by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists signed to the label, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."