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

The guitar virtuoso, who performed on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest studio bands in the history of soul music, the four-piece band the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

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

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated 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 remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."

A Prolific Career

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, 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 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper remarked in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same riff twice."

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

According to historical accounts, he was "integral to virtually every record put out by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

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