🔗 Share this article

Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.

The artist, who played on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, died this past Wednesday in Nashville.

Considered among the greatest studio bands in soul and R&B, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.

Cropper also joined the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a statement.

"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.

A specific cause was not immediately known.

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

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

An Illustrious Journey

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

A year later, the MGs were formed, comprising organist 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 considered myself to be a rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked 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."

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

According to available information, he was "involved in the majority of record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists on the roster, so we had a pretty busy schedule."