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

The artist, who performed on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, died recently in the city of Nashville.

Considered among the best supporting groups in soul and R&B, the quartet the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a statement.

"While we mourn the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not disclosed.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same lick twice."

Not only was he 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 available information, he was "involved in nearly all record issued by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."