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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 played on and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Nashville.

Often cited among the greatest supporting groups in soul music, the group the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent impacted generations around the world," his family said in a statement.

"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they added.

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating fresh material.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Named the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

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

"I've always seen myself as a rhythm player," Cropper explained 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 refuse to play the same phrase twice."

In addition to being 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 historical accounts, he was "involved in virtually every record put out by Stax from 1961 through 1970".

"We would often spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."