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

The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in the city of Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest studio bands in the history of soul music, the group the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their hit cover of Soul Man.

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

"While we grieve the loss of a loved one and companion, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they added.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new songs.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment at the Stax label 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 succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper said in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same riff twice."

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

According to historical accounts, he was "a part of nearly all record issued by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would often spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had nearly 20 artists signed to the label, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."