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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The musician, who played on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest backing bands in the history of soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched countless people around the world," his family said in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, comprising organist 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 considered myself to be a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on 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 phrase twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and in addition to 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 nearly all record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists signed to the label, so we had a very hectic schedule."