🔗 Share this article

Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The musician, who contributed to and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest supporting groups in soul music, the group the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent inspired generations around the world," his family expressed in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not disclosed.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new songs.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Ranked the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical 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 honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same phrase twice."

As well as 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 nearly all record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would truly 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 extremely demanding schedule."