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

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

Often cited among the best studio bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a release.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.

A reason for his passing was not disclosed.

A friend, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.

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

A Prolific Career

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

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

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

"I've always seen myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I enjoy 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 phrase twice."

Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to his official biography, 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 nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a very hectic schedule."