Legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, guitarist of the soul group Booker T & the MGs, has died at the age of 84
The legendary guitarist Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The guitar virtuoso, who played on and co-wrote the classic song 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 greatest supporting groups in soul music, the group Booker T & the MGs was the resident studio band of the groundbreaking Memphis label Stax Records and is most famous for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.
Cropper later became a member of the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and featured on their successful version of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched generations around the world," his family expressed in a statement.
"While we grieve the loss of a family man and friend, we take solace knowing that Steve will be remembered through his music," they noted.
A reason for his passing was not disclosed.
A friend, Eddie Gore, stated he was with Cropper on Tuesday in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.
"He's such a good human," Gore remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
An Illustrious Journey
Ranked the number two 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 formed, featuring 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 thought of myself as a player who focuses on rhythm," Cropper said in a past interview. "I get off on 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 phrase twice."
Not only was he a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and alongside 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 "a part of nearly all record released by Stax from the fall of 1961 through year end 1970".
"We would literally spend long days in the studio," Cropper noted in an interview. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a pretty busy schedule."
