🔗 Share this article

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

The guitar virtuoso, who played on and collaborated on writing the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, passed away on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.

Widely regarded among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the group Booker T & the MGs was the house band of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.

Cropper went on to join the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and performed on their hit cover of Soul Man.

"Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose profound talent inspired countless people around the world," his family said in a message.

"While we mourn the loss of a family man and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they continued.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.

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

A Prolific Career

Named the number two guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.

A year later, the MGs were founded, featuring 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 said 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 are reluctant to repeat the same lick 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 available information, he was "a part of virtually every record released by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".

"We would literally 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 pretty busy schedule."