Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The musician, who contributed to and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Nashville.
Widely regarded among the best supporting groups in soul and R&B, the group Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper went on to join the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent touched countless people around the world," his family said in a statement.
"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 continued.
A specific cause was not disclosed.
A friend, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new songs.
"He's such a kind human," Gore said. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure."
Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs were founded, featuring keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded 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 player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on 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 riff 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 co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to available information, he was "a part of virtually every record released by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970".
"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
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