🔗 Share this article Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died aged 84 Steve Cropper served as a key member of the in-house studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records. Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us 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 recently in the city of Nashville. Considered among the greatest studio bands in the history of soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions. Cropper went on to join the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their hit cover of Soul Man. "Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family said in a statement. "While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they added. A cause of death was not disclosed. An associate, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new music. "He's such a good human," Gore said. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure." Steve Cropper, pictured on the right, with artists Eddie Floyd and Sheryl Crow. An Illustrious Journey Voted the number two guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20. A year later, the MGs were founded, consisting of keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 remarked 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 are reluctant to repeat the same phrase twice." Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood. According to his official biography, he was "integral to virtually every record released by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970". "We would often spend long days in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists signed to the label, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."