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

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

Considered among the best studio bands in soul music, the group the MGs was the house band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and played on their successful version of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent inspired generations around the world," his family said in a message.

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

A reason for his passing was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

A Storied Musical Path

Ranked the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment 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 succeeded by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1964.

The band was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

"I've always thought of myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players wouldn't consider it. They refuse to play the same phrase twice."

As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and alongside 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 nearly all record issued by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".

"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."