The auction house was holding what it called its first Quality Sale of items expected to bring bigger prices. I browsed the tables looking for something of quality that would grab me but very little did.
Except for two tables of guitars – several of them Fenders – that I wasn’t likely to buy but that piqued a memory. A week ago, I had heard on the radio that a guitarist named Skip Pitts had died.
I had never heard of Pitts before, but the announcer indicated that he was someone I should’ve known. Soon after, the announcer mentioned his music and played excerpts. That’s when I realized that I knew Pitts – not through his name but his amazing music. His were the sounds that “made” Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft.” His was the ear-catching bom-da-bom-da-bom-da-bom intro to the Isley Brothers “It’s Your Thing,” one of my favorite 1960s tunes.
Charles “Skip” Pitts had died and I was just discovering his name. Among many of us he would be considered a sideman, but in the right music circles, he appeared to be a giant.
He died on May 1 of lung cancer at the age of 65 in Memphis, TN. He had played with some of the best of Stax Records’ soul singers – most of the time with Isaac Hayes, with whom he collaborated for nearly 40 years. Pitts was known for his wah wah sound, according to several articles, that he executed superbly on the Shaft theme.
A native of Washington, DC, Pitts learned at the knee of his neighbor Bo Diddley, and worked with names whose soul music I knew and loved: Gene Chandler’s “Rainbow 65 (at age 15),” Wilson Pickett, Al Green, Sam & Dave and Rufus Thomas.
Pitts and his group the Midnight Movers backed the Isley Brothers after they left Motown in the late 1960s to form their own label. His familiar guitar sound in “It’s Your Thing” took root and got him the long association with Hayes.
He joined Hayes band in 1970 and was still working with the singer when Hayes died in 2008. The Shaft theme, which became his trademark sound, was created by accident.
“I had a Maestro Boomerang wah that I was using on the road,” he said in an interview with Guitar Player. “The ‘Shaft’ part was created because Isaac needed something driving for the beginning of the movie, when Richard Roundtree is coming out of the subway and walking through Times Square. … Isaac was searching on the piano for something to put with it.
“I was checking my pedals. I tested my overdrive, my reverb, the Maestro box, and then I started in with the wah. Isaac stopped everything and said, ‘Skip, what is that you are playing?’ I said, ‘I am just tuning up.’ He said, ‘Keep playing that G octave.’ … It was getting repetitious to me. So when he went to the next part I tried to do the rhythm with him. He says, ‘No. Stay with what you are playing. I don’t give a damn what I play.’ He told me how to play it and put it in perspective, but it was my creation.”
Pitts was a session musician at Memphis’ Stax Records for years. He also contributed to the soundtracks of several movies, including “Hustle & Flow” starring Terrence Howard in 2005 and the strange “Black Snake Moan” starring Samuel L. Jackson in 2007.
Glad (and sad) to meet you, Mr. Pitts.
Charles “Skip” Pitts was a legend. People may not have known him by name but they knew that famous Wah lick on the Shaft theme as soon as it came on. Most guitarist thought oh I can play that sounds pretty easy but they had another thing coming when they attempted to play it. It is a tremendously hard luck to master and no one could play it like Skip Pitts, the man was a master at funk and his playing and skill will be remembered long after he’s gone even if they don’t remember his name they’ll always remember that lick as soon as it comes on. Simply amazing, Wow!