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Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The artist, who played on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in soul music, the four-piece band Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent impacted generations around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a loved one and companion, we find comfort knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they continued.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new music.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records 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 entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as 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 are reluctant to repeat the same lick twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to historical accounts, he was "involved in the majority of record put out by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."