🔗 Share this article

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

The artist, who contributed to and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed recently in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the greatest supporting groups in the history of soul music, the quartet the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose profound talent touched countless people around the world," his family stated in a message.

"While we grieve the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they continued.

A specific cause was not immediately known.

A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.

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

An Illustrious Journey

Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were formed, comprising keyboardist 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 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 repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same riff twice."

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

According to historical accounts, he was "integral to the majority of record released by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."