Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.
The musician, who played on and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in the city of Nashville.
Widely regarded among the greatest backing bands in soul music, the group Booker T & the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.
Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched countless people around the world," his family stated in a statement.
"While we grieve the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.
A cause of death 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 good human," Gore said. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
A Prolific Career
Ranked the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper began working at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs came together, consisting of keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded 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 thought of myself as a rhythm player," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "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."
Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to historical accounts, he was "integral to the majority of record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".
"We would truly spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
