Steve Cropper, guitarist of Booker T and the MGs, has died at the age of 84
Steve Cropper, the acclaimed guitarist with the seminal soul group Booker T & the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The musician, who played on and collaborated on writing Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and Wilson Pickett's In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Nashville.
Considered among the finest supporting groups in soul and R&B, the group Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the historic Memphis label Stax/Volt and is primarily known for their 1962 instrumental track Green Onions.
Cropper went on to join the comedy music group The Blues Brothers in the late '70s and performed on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved artist, writer, and producer whose immense talent inspired millions of lives around the world," his family expressed in a message.
"While we grieve the loss of a family man and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music," they continued.
A specific cause was not immediately known.
A friend, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper recently in Nashville, where the guitarist was in the process of creating new songs.
"He's such a wonderful human," Gore remarked. "We were lucky to have him, for sure."
An Illustrious Journey
Voted the runner-up for guitarist of all time by a British music magazine in 1996, Cropper first found employment 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 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
"I've always thought of myself as a rhythm guitarist," Cropper explained in a past interview. "I get off on the fact that I can play something consistently, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They refuse to play the same phrase twice."
As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a vastly creative songwriter, and besides 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 "involved in virtually every record put out by Stax from late 1961 through the end of 1970".
"We would literally spend 15 hours a day in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had a roster of artists we worked with, so we had a extremely demanding schedule."
