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

The artist, who performed on and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the group Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 instrumental 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 musician, songwriter, and producer whose profound talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family said in a release.

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

A cause of death was not immediately known.

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

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the number two 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, comprising keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I get off on the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play 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 collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "integral to virtually every record released by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would often spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."