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Esteemed musician 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 co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the four-piece band Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched countless people around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not released at this time.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, 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 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper explained 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 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 collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "a part of nearly all record released by Stax from 1961 through 1970".

"We would often spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."