NOVEMBER 20 Staff at Stax Records’ headquarters, at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis, were elated. Released on Stax’s Enterprise subsidiary, Isaac Hayes’ soundtrack to the movie Shaft had become their fastest-selling album, topping the US pop album charts. Additionally, the long-player spawned a massive selling hit single whose exaltation of “the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks” would enter the vernacular of pop.
How had they got here? Maybe because in early 1971 Melvin van Peebles had written, directed and starred in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song on a shoestring, using his own money plus a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby. When it grossed an unbelievable $11 million, Hollywood took notice. By the close of 1971 roughly a quarter of America’s film output was black-orientated and Shaft was top of the heap. Directed by Gordon Parks, the first black director on a feature film at a major US studio, it was promoted by black advertising firm Uniworld and starred the little-known Richard Roundtree as the eponymous hero.
A theme that musically replicated the macho image of John Shaft was required. Hayes duly fashioned one that delivered, propelled by drummer Willie Hall’s hi-hat rhythm, funky orchestrations and Charles Pitts’s insistent wah-wah guitar riff.
When the film’s producers heard this opening salvo, they commissioned Hayes to write the whole soundtrack. It was first recorded in Hollywood, but then re-recorded and extended to double-album length at Stax in Memphis.
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