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

The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed recently in Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent touched countless people around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered 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 music.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the second-best 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 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 seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "involved in virtually every record put out by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".

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