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

The artist, who played on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in the city of Nashville.

Widely regarded among the best backing bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

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

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

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

A cause of death was not immediately known.

An associate, 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 said. "We were blessed to have him, for sure."

An Illustrious Journey

Named the second-best 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 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always thought of myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper said in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same lick twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides 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 "a part of the majority of record issued 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 a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."