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Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The guitar virtuoso, who played on and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died on Wednesday in the city of Nashville.

Considered among the finest supporting groups in the history of soul music, the group the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family said in a statement.

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

A cause of death was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new music.

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

A Prolific Career

Named the number two guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper began working at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs came together, comprising 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 player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "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."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and alongside Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.

According to available information, he was "involved in virtually every record issued by Stax from late 1961 through 1970".

"We would truly spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had a roster of artists signed to the label, so we had a pretty busy schedule."