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

The artist, who played on and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the finest backing bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a message.

"While we grieve the loss of a family man and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they continued.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new songs.

"He's such a good 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 first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, 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 considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same phrase twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to his official biography, he was "involved in the majority of record issued by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."