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

The artist, who played on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the best studio bands in soul music, the four-piece band the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family said in a message.

"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Voted 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 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 entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a rhythm player," Cropper remarked in a previous conversation. "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 phrase twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a productive 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 historical accounts, he was "a part of nearly all record put out by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."