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Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away 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 the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Often cited among the best studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the blues revival band 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 countless people around the world," his family said in a statement.

"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we find comfort knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they added.

A specific cause was not disclosed.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working 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 succeeded 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 guitarist," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same phrase twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and alongside 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 "a part of virtually every record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."