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

The guitar virtuoso, who played on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the finest studio bands in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent touched generations around the world," his family stated in a message.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they added.

A specific cause was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new music.

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

A Prolific Career

Named the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a rhythm player," Cropper explained 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 lick twice."

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

According to his official biography, he was "involved in virtually every record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."