Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, member of the famed band Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has passed away at the age of 84.
The guitar virtuoso, who contributed to and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, died recently in Music City, Nashville.
Often cited among the best backing bands in soul and R&B, the four-piece band the MGs was the core musical unit of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper later became a member of the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the 1970s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose immense talent inspired generations around the world," his family stated in a release.
"While we grieve the loss of a family man and friend, we are consoled knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they noted.
A specific cause was not immediately known.
An associate, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating fresh material.
"He's such a wonderful human," Gore commented. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
A Prolific Career
Named the number two guitarist of all time by a music periodical in 1996, Cropper started his career 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 player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a previous conversation. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players don't want to even know about that. They refuse to play the same lick twice."
In addition to being a guitarist, Cropper was a prolific songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he co-wrote Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to his official biography, he was "integral to the majority of record put out by Stax from the fall of 1961 through 1970".
"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had nearly 20 artists on the roster, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."
