🔗 Share this article

Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.

The musician, who contributed to and helped pen Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the four-piece band Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent touched countless people around the world," his family expressed in a message.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.

A specific cause was not released at this time.

A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on fresh material.

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

A Prolific Career

Named the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, comprising organist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was succeeded 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 explained in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same phrase twice."

Not only was he 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 "a part of virtually every record issued by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".

"We would truly spend marathon sessions 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."