🔗 Share this article

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 performed on and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Considered among the greatest backing bands in the history of soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join 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 musician, songwriter, and producer whose immense talent inspired countless people around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a loved one and companion, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they continued.

A specific cause was not released at this time.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records 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 thought of myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same lick twice."

Not only was he 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 historical accounts, he was "integral to virtually every record released by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would often 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."