Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of the famed band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.
The guitar virtuoso, who played on and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in the city of Nashville.
Considered among the best studio bands in soul music, the group Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax/Volt and is most famous for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a deeply admired musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family said in a release.
"While we mourn the loss of a loved one and companion, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.
A cause of death was not disclosed.
An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.
"He's such a good human," Gore commented. "We were blessed to have him, for sure."
A Storied Musical Path
Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs were founded, 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 seen myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I get off on the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They are reluctant to repeat the same lick 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 available information, he was "involved in nearly all record put out by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".
"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."
