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The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The musician, who performed on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died on Wednesday in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the best studio bands in soul and R&B, the four-piece band Booker T & the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous 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 played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a release.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on fresh material.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, featuring organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained 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 are reluctant to repeat the same lick twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and alongside 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 put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a very hectic schedule."