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10 items from 2012
Charles "Skip" Pitts, Shaft Guitarist and Soul Mainstay, Dead at 65
2 May 2012 6:07 AM, PDT | E! Online | See recent E! Online news »
Charles "Skip" Pitts, the revered soul guitarist whose iconic guitar riff for the "Theme From Shaft" helped make both the song and its eponymous movie pop-culture touchstones, has died. He was 65. According to a rep for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Pitts passed away in Memphis on Tuesday after a battle with cancer. Pitts' storied career was marked by his fertile, 40-year collaboration with Isaac Hayes, whose band he joined in 1970. Their work on the Shaft soundtrack signaled a definitive and watershed moment in the blaxploitation film movement, pushing it to the forefront of the pop consciousness and giving black filmmakers a foothold—and a sound. The »
Charles "Skip" Pitts, Shaft Guitarist and Soul Mainstay, Dead at 65
2 May 2012 6:07 AM, PDT | E! Online - UK | See recent E! Online - UK news »
Charles "Skip" Pitts, the revered soul guitarist whose iconic guitar riff for the "Theme From Shaft" helped make both the song and its eponymous movie pop-culture touchstones, has died. He was 65. According to a rep for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Pitts passed away in Memphis on Tuesday after a battle with cancer. Pitts' storied career was marked by his fertile, 40-year collaboration with Isaac Hayes, whose band he joined in 1970. Their work on the Shaft soundtrack signaled a definitive and watershed moment in the blaxploitation film movement, pushing it to the forefront of the pop consciousness and giving black filmmakers a foothold—and a sound. The »
Guitarist Who Performed The 'Theme From Shaft' Dies
1 May 2012 9:32 PM, PDT | Huffington Post | See recent Huffington Post news »
Nashville, Tenn. — Charles "Skip" Pitts, the longtime Memphis guitar player for Isaac Hayes whose distinctive sound helped define soul and make "Shaft" cool, has died. He was 65.
Tim Sampson, communication director with the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, said Pitts died Tuesday in Memphis after a long struggle with cancer.
Pitts was responsible for the unforgettable wah-wah pedal guitar sound on Hayes' "Theme from Shaft," the `70s Blaxploitation film that remains a memorable moment in American popular culture – mostly due to the enduring popularity of the song. Pitts' 1971 riff was angry and bristling with menace, capturing a dangerous vibe that transcended the screen and translated to the streets of a tense nation.
He also was responsible the guitar line from The Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing," also a distinctive, influential moment in American music.
Schooled by neighbor Bo Diddley while growing up in Washington, D.C., Pitts first »
- AP
Isaac Hayes' guitarist Charles 'Skip' Pitts dies at 65
1 May 2012 2:24 PM, PDT | Hitfix | See recent Hitfix news »
Nashville, Tenn. (AP) — Charles "Skip" Pitts, the longtime Memphis guitar player for Isaac Hayes whose distinctive sound helped define soul and make "Shaft" cool, has died. He was 65. Tim Sampson, communication director with the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, said Pitts died Tuesday in Memphis after a long struggle with cancer. Pitts was responsible for the unforgettable wah-wah pedal guitar sound on Hayes' "Theme from Shaft," the '70s Blaxploitation film that remains a memorable moment in American popular culture — mostly due to the enduring popularity of the song. Pitts' 1971 riff was angry and bristling with menace, »
- Chris Talbott (AP)
Saxophonist Dies At 70
13 April 2012 3:53 PM, PDT | Huffington Post | See recent Huffington Post news »
Memphis, Tenn. -- Tenor saxophonist Andrew Love, who formed the award-winning Memphis Horns duo with trumpeter Wayne Jackson and played unforgettable lines behind the royalty of soul, rock, pop and R&B, has died at age 70, his wife said Thursday.
Willie Love told The Associated Press on Friday that her husband died Thursday night surrounded by family and friends at his Memphis home. Love had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Love is best known for his work with Jackson as The Memphis Horns. The two were awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in February, only the second instrumental backup group in history to receive the honor.
"He played with such feeling. He played with grace, soul," Willie Love said. "Andrew played notes from his heart."
Love, who was black, and Jackson, who is white, played together on 52 No. 1 records and 83 gold and platinum records, according to Memphis-based Stax Records. They backed up Aretha Franklin, »
- AP
Bruce Springsteen Bares His Soul at Harlem’s Apollo Theater
10 March 2012 4:02 AM, PST | Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal | See recent Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal news »
Getty Images Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform during SiriusXM’s concert celebrating 10 years of satellite radio at The Apollo Theater on March 9, 2012 in New York City.
Last night at the Apollo Theater, Bruce Springsteen, along with his expanded E Street Band, prepped for a U.S. and European tour with a performance that reminded the audience that his four-decade career is built in part on a passion for African-American music – raucous Memphis R&B in his formative »
- Jim Fusilli
[Now Streaming] Your ‘John Carter,’ ‘Friends With Kids’ and ‘Footnote’ Alternatives
8 March 2012 6:00 AM, PST | The Film Stage | See recent The Film Stage news »
Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently available on Netflix Instant Watch. This week we offer alternatives to John Carter, Friends With Kids and Footnote.
Friday theaters will determine the fate of Disney’s big budget epic John Carter, which faces off against the closest thing to a Bridesmaids sequel your likely to see and an Oscar contender that transcends the language barrier. But if these offerings pique your desire for adventure, rated-r romance and heralded Hebrew features, then we’ve got you covered with some of the best titles Now Streaming.
Director Andrew Stanton makes his live-action debut with this this Mars-set adventure about a Civil War veteran (Taylor Kitsch) who finds he has extraordinary powers on this extraterrestrial terrain that enables him to be a hero to a beautiful alien princess (Lynn Collins). Willem Dafoe co-stars.
More »
- jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
Reindeer Games (The Director's Cut) - Blu-ray Review
4 March 2012 8:11 PM, PST | Monsters and Critics | See recent Monsters and Critics news »
With actors delivering lines completely over the top, tons of action, a ridiculous plot, and an extremely hot Charlize Theron, 2000's Reindeer Games could be the best, bad, guilty pleasure action film ever made. Now this gem is on Blu-ray looking great and available in the director's cut - which is about 20 minutes longer! Directed by John Frankenheimer (Ronin, Birdman of Alcatraz, and The Manchurian Candidate) and written by Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and The Ring), the film stars Theron, Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, James Frain, Isaac Hayes, Clarence Williams III, Donal Logue, Danny Trejo, Dennis Farina. This movie is so great even Ashton Kutcher and Ron Jeremy show up. The film opens to men »
- Patrick Luce
Junkfood Cinema: Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off
17 February 2012 10:40 AM, PST | FilmSchoolRejects.com | See recent FilmSchoolRejects news »
Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; enjoy a bowl of our Sugar-Coated Pimp Smacks. We recently asked blaxploitation icon Isaac Hayes to write a theme song for this week’s entry. He politely declined, as he is currently dead, but we think his song would have sounded almost exactly like this… There’s some dudes on floor; with indigestion, stomachs sore. What hit ‘em? Junkfood Cinema! Watching bad films all day, who threw their integrity away? Junkfood Cinema! We’ll tell you what makes them so fine, what puts the stars in our eyes. So bad, but who loves them? Junkfood Cinema! To top this thing with a cherry, we offer you a snack that’s so very…so very delicious. Junkfood Cinema. Thanks Isaac, we hope you’ll forgive us. Today’s Sweet Sweetflick: Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off. What Makes It Bad? Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, more so than most blaxploitation sequels, picks »
- Brian Salisbury
Vintage Black Cinema at the St. Louis Black Film Festival
2 February 2012 7:16 AM, PST | WeAreMovieGeeks.com | See recent WeAreMovieGeeks.com news »
What better way to celebrate Black History Month than takein some vintage films about the black experience?
The folks behind the St. Louis Black Film Festival Presents a Classic Black Film Festival for Black History Month at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in St. Louis. Loop) each Thursday in February. Last year the St. Louis Black Film Festival presented a series of new films by black filmmakers, but this year are going back into the vaults and digging out some vintage cinema for audiences with an interest in black history to enjoy on the big screen.
The event kicks off tonight, February 2nd, at the Tivoli Theater at 5pm with the 1943 classic Stormy Weather, about the relationship between an aspiring dancer (Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson) and a popular songstress (Lena Horne). Robinson was the world’s preeminent tap dancer of his day, and is remembered for his appearances with Shirley Temple »
- Tom Stockman
2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1996
10 items from 2012
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