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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The musician, who performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Often cited among the best studio bands in soul music, the four-piece band Booker T & the MGs was the core musical unit of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family said in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure 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 fresh material.

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

A Prolific Career

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

A year later, the MGs were founded, featuring 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 thought of myself as a rhythm player," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same riff twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "involved in the majority of record released by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".

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