Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of Booker T and the MGs, has died at the age of 84
Esteemed musician Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.
The musician, who played on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in the city of Nashville.
Considered among the best backing bands in soul music, the quartet the MGs was the house band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and performed on their successful version of Soul Man.
"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a release.
"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.
A specific cause was not released at this time.
A colleague, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new songs.
"He's such a kind human," Gore remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
A Storied Musical Path
Voted the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper started his career at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs were founded, consisting of 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 seen myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something repeatedly, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They won't even play the same phrase twice."
Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to his official biography, he was "involved in virtually every record issued by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".
"We would literally spend marathon sessions in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
