Steve Cropper, musician of the famed band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The artist, who contributed to and co-wrote the classic song Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed on Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.
Widely regarded among the finest supporting groups in soul music, the group the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose profound talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a statement.
"While we feel sorrow for the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.
A specific cause was not released at this time.
A friend, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating fresh material.
"He's such a wonderful human," Gore remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
A Storied Musical Path
Named the second-best guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper started his career at Stax Records in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs were founded, consisting of 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 considered myself to be a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper remarked 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 refuse to play the same lick twice."
Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a productive 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 "a part of the majority of record put out by Stax from 1961 through year end 1970".
"We would often spend long days in the studio," Cropper said. "I think we had nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."
