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

The guitar virtuoso, who played on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, passed away recently in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not released at this time.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on fresh material.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records 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 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 remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff 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 helped write 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 the end of 1970".

"We would truly spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."