Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of Booker T and the MGs, has died at the age of 84
The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The artist, who performed on and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.
Widely regarded among the best studio bands in soul music, the group the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is primarily known for their 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper also joined the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and played on their hit cover of Soul Man.
"Steve was a cherished musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a release.
"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.
A cause of death was not immediately known.
A colleague, 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 good human," Gore said. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure."
A Storied Musical Path
Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs came together, featuring keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 rhythm player," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I take pride in 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 riff twice."
Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and in addition to Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to historical accounts, he was "involved in nearly all record released by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".
"We would truly spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
