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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The guitar virtuoso, 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 this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest studio bands in soul music, the quartet the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and performed on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent impacted 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 added.

A specific cause was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

A Storied Musical Path

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

A year later, the MGs came together, comprising keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always thought of myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play the same phrase twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside 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 "integral to nearly all record issued by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."