The iconic guitarist Steve Cropper, guitarist of the famed band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
Steve Cropper, the renowned guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The musician, who played on and helped pen the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died recently in Music City, Nashville.
Considered among the greatest backing bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the influential Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.
Cropper later became a member of the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and featured on their hit cover of Soul Man.
"Steve was a cherished guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a statement.
"While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.
A reason for his passing was not disclosed.
A colleague, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing new songs.
"He's such a wonderful human," Gore remarked. "We were fortunate to have him, for sure."
A Storied Musical Path
Voted the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper first found employment at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs were formed, consisting of keyboardist Booker T Jones, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewie Steinberg - who was replaced 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 player," Cropper explained in a previous conversation. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They are reluctant to repeat the same riff 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 helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to available information, he was "integral to nearly all record released by Stax from late 1961 through year end 1970".
"We would often spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."
