Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, musician of Booker T and the MGs, dies at the age of 84
The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the iconic band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84.
The musician, who performed on and co-wrote Otis Redding's 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 backing bands in the history of soul music, the group Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the resident studio band of the historic Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their classic 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper also joined the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd act The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and featured on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a deeply admired artist, writer, and producer whose profound talent impacted generations 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 continued.
A specific cause was not immediately known.
An associate, Eddie Gore, mentioned he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist was developing fresh material.
"He's such a good human," Gore remarked. "We were blessed to have him, for sure."
An Illustrious Journey
Ranked the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper began working at Stax in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs came together, comprising organist 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 guitarist," Cropper said in a past interview. "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 helped write Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to his official biography, he was "a part of nearly all record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through the end of 1970".
"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
