[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8AISJNcXU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL987D8EFE6722BE9C[/youtube]
Each year, there’s someone at the Ponderosa Stomp who does a musical thing you’ve known all your life without knowing who did it. On Saturday night, Memphis retro-soul band the Bo-Keys will back up William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Otis Clay and Sir Mack Rice in a tribute to Stax Records. The Bo-Keys’ guitarist is Skip Pitts, the Stax session guitarist who played the immediately identifiable wah-wah opening to “The Theme from Shaft.” Here the Bo-Keys are in 2009 at the Ponderosa Stomp, which takes place this weekend at the Howlin’ Wolf.

The Bo-Keys have a new album, Got to Get Back!. Bassist Scott Bomar and Skip Pitts were recently interviewed about it, Shaft and other things on NPR.

The Bo-Keys’ sax player, Jim Spake, was also a part of OffBeat‘s Best of the Beat tribute last year when he played in the band that paid tribute to Alex Chilton.