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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The musician, who performed on and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed recently in Nashville.

Considered among the finest studio bands in the history of soul music, the quartet the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent inspired generations around the world," his family stated in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not released at this time.

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

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the second-best 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 came together, 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 seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play the same riff twice."

In addition to being 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 his official biography, he was "a part of the majority of record released by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

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