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

The guitar virtuoso, who performed on 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 the city of Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest studio bands in the history of soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent touched generations around the world," his family expressed in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not disclosed.

A colleague, 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 remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."

A Storied Musical Path

Named the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, comprising organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded 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 player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play 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 issued by Stax from late 1961 through 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."