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

The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and helped pen 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.

Considered among the best supporting groups in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

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

"While we grieve the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they continued.

A cause of death was not released at this time.

An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

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

A year later, the MGs came together, featuring 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 thought of myself as a rhythm player," Cropper said in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same lick twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to his official biography, he was "involved in virtually every record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a very hectic schedule."