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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 helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the group the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a deeply admired guitarist, composer, and producer whose profound talent inspired generations around the world," his family expressed in a release.

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

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Named 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 came together, consisting of keyboardist 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 considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same riff twice."

In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to his official biography, he was "a part of virtually every record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".

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