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The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.

The guitar virtuoso, 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, died on Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the finest studio bands in soul music, the four-piece band the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted generations around the world," his family expressed in a statement.

"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they added.

A cause of death was not disclosed.

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

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, comprising organist 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 thought of myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same riff twice."

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

According to his official biography, he was "integral to nearly all record put out by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."