🔗 Share this article

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

The musician, who performed on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Often cited among the best backing bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is best remembered for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

A friend, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new music.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Named the second-best 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, featuring keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 seen myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same lick twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "involved in nearly all record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

"We would truly spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."