🔗 Share this article Steve Cropper, member of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died aged 84 Steve Cropper served as a key member of the resident musical group of the pioneering Memphis label Stax Records. Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84. The musician, who played on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Nashville. Considered among the finest studio bands in soul and R&B, the four-piece band the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions. Cropper also joined the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man. "Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted generations around the world," his family said in a message. "While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted. A cause of death was not immediately known. A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating fresh material. "He's such a wonderful human," Gore remarked. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure." Steve Cropper, right, with fellow musicians Sheryl Crow and Eddie Floyd. An Illustrious Journey Named the number two guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20. A year later, the MGs were formed, consisting of organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. "I've always considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They are reluctant to repeat 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 co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood. According to available information, he was "integral to nearly all record issued by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970". "We would truly spend long days in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."