🔗 Share this article

The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The musician, who performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, died on Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the finest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the quartet the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for 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 immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on fresh material.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, consisting of organist 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 thought of myself as a rhythm player," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They are reluctant to repeat the same lick twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "integral to the majority of record issued by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would often spend long days in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."