Steve Cropper, member of Booker T and the MGs, dies aged 84
Steve Cropper, the celebrated guitarist with Booker T and the MGs, has left us at the age of 84.
The musician, who played on and co-wrote Otis Redding's Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay and the hit track In the Midnight Hour, succumbed this past Wednesday in Music City, Nashville.
Considered among the finest studio bands in soul music, the four-piece band Booker T. Jones and the MGs was the core musical unit of the influential Memphis label Stax and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.
Cropper went on to join the blues revival band The Blues Brothers in the late 1970s and played on their popular rendition of Soul Man.
"Steve was a beloved guitarist, composer, and producer whose extraordinary talent impacted millions of lives around the world," his family stated in a message.
"While we grieve the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will endure through his music," they added.
A specific cause was not immediately known.
An associate, Eddie Gore, recalled he was with Cropper just the day before in Nashville, where the guitarist had been working on new music.
"He's such a good human," Gore commented. "We were blessed to have him, for sure."
A Prolific Career
Ranked the second-best guitarist of all time by a UK publication in 1996, Cropper started his career at the Stax label in 1961 at the age of 20.
A year later, the MGs came together, 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 rhythm guitarist," Cropper remarked in a past interview. "I enjoy the fact that I can play something over and over, while other guitar players avoid that approach. They won't even play the same riff twice."
As well as a guitarist, Cropper was a productive songwriter, and besides Dock of the Bay and In the Midnight Hour, he collaborated on Eddie Floyd's hit Knock on Wood.
According to historical accounts, he was "a part of nearly all record released by Stax from 1961 through 1970".
"We would often spend long days in the studio," Cropper once recalled. "I think we had 17 or 18 artists signed to the label, so we had a very hectic schedule."
