Steve Cropper, musician of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The artist, who played on 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 greatest supporting groups in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered 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 popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a cherished artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent inspired generations around the world," his family expressed in a release.
"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they noted.
A specific cause was not released at this time.
An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.
"He's such a wonderful human," Gore commented. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure."
A Prolific Career
Voted the runner-up for 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, comprising organist 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 seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play the same lick twice."
In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to available information, he was "a part of the majority of record issued by Stax from 1961 through the end of 1970".
"We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
