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

The musician, who contributed to and helped pen 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 greatest backing bands in the history of soul music, the quartet the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not released at this time.

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

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, 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 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "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."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

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

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists signed to the label, so we had a pretty busy schedule."