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

The guitar virtuoso, who performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent inspired countless people around the world," his family stated in a statement.

"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they added.

A specific cause was not disclosed.

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

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

An Illustrious Journey

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, comprising 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 considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play the same phrase twice."

In addition to being 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 virtually every record released 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 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."