🔗 Share this article Steve Cropper, guitarist of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died aged 84 Steve Cropper was part of the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records. The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84. The musician, who played on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville. Considered among the best supporting groups in soul and R&B, the four-piece band Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions. Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man. "Steve was a cherished guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent impacted millions of lives 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 endure through his music," they added. A specific cause was not immediately known. A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new music. "He's such a kind human," Gore remarked. "We were blessed to have him, for sure." Steve Cropper, pictured on the right, with artists Sheryl Crow and Eddie Floyd. A Prolific Career Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20. A year later, the MGs came together, 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 past interview. "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 lick twice." Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and in addition to 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 released by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970". "We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."