Legendary Guitarist Steve Cropper Dead at 84

Steve Cropper, a guitarist whose work was featured on some of the biggest hits of the soul era, has died.

Soulsville Foundation President and CEO Pat Mitchell Worley said Cropper's family told her the musician died in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday, reports the Associated Press. Although a cause of death wasn't released, an associate of Cropper's said the guitarist had recently spent time rehabilitation facility after a fall.

Cropper started playing guitar in his early years, and he later formed a group called The Mar-Keys, which became Stax Records' house band. Several members of The Mar-Keys, including Cropper, eventually joined Booker T. and the M.G.'s, whose best-known song, "Green Onions," became a hit in 1962.

Cropper went on to provide backing instrumentation for artists like Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, and he co-wrote Redding's hit track "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay."

The guitarist later joined The Blues Brothers revue band, appearing in the 1980 movie and its 1998 sequel "Blues Brothers 2000."

Cropper was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, along with the rest of Booker T. and the M.G.'s, in 1992, and he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

He was nominated for several Grammy Awards over the course of his life, winning two for Best Rhythm and Blues Song and Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1969 and 1995, respectively.

Cropper was 84 years old.