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

The musician, who performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest backing bands in soul music, the group the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a statement.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they added.

A reason for his passing was not released at this time.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

Ranked the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine 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 organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They won't even play the same phrase twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and besides 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 "integral to the majority of record released by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."