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Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and collaborated on writing 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 best backing bands in soul and R&B, the quartet the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent impacted generations around the world," his family said in a release.

"While we grieve the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not immediately known.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new music.

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

A Prolific Career

Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

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

The band was honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always thought of myself as a rhythm player," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They won't even play the same riff twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative 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 "a part of virtually every record put out by Stax from 1961 through 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had nearly 20 artists signed to the label, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."