{"id":43746,"date":"2022-08-13T00:17:50","date_gmt":"2022-08-13T00:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/bill-pitman-revered-studio-guitarist-is-dead-at-102\/"},"modified":"2022-08-13T00:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T00:17:50","slug":"bill-pitman-revered-studio-guitarist-is-dead-at-102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/bill-pitman-revered-studio-guitarist-is-dead-at-102\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Pitman, Revered Studio Guitarist, Is Dead at 102"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bill Pitman, a guitarist who accompanied by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and others from the late 1950s to the &#8217;70s, and who for decades was heard on the soundtracks of countless Hollywood films and television shows, died on Thursday night at his home in La Quinta, Calif.  He was 102.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His wife, Janet Pitman, said he died after four weeks at a rehabilitation center in Palm Springs, where he was treated for a fractured spine in a fall, and the past week at home under hospice care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Virtually anonymous outside the music world but revved within it, Mr.  Pitman was a member of what came to be called the Wrecking Crew \u2014 a loosely organized corps of peerless Los Angeles freelancers who were in constant demand by record producers to back up headline performers.  As an ensemble, they turned routine recording sessions and live performances into extraordinary musical moments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Examples abound: Sinatra&#8217;s \u201cStrangers in the Night\u201d (1966).  Presley&#8217;s &#8220;Blue Hawaii&#8221; (1961).  Streisand&#8217;s &#8220;The Way We Were&#8221; (1973).  The Ronettes&#8217; &#8220;Be My Baby&#8221; (1963).  The Beach Boys&#8217; &#8220;Good Vibrations&#8221; (1966).  On \u201cRaindrops Keep Fallin&#8217; on My Head,\u201d from the Paul Newman-Robert Redford hit movie \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u201d (1969), Mr.  Pitman played ukulele.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a career of nearly 40 years, Mr.  Pitman played countless gigs for studios and record labels that dominated the pop charts but rarely credited the performers behind the stars.  The Wrecking Crew did almost everything \u2014 television and film scores;  pop, rock and jazz arrangements;  even cartoon soundtracks.  Whether recorded in a studio or on location, everything was performed with precision and pizazz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese were crack session players who moved effortlessly through many different styles: pop, jazz, rockabilly, but primarily the two-minute-thirty-second world of hit records that America listened to all through the sixties and seventies,\u201d Allegro magazine reminisced in 2011. \u201cIf it was a hit and recorded in LA, the Wrecking Crew cut the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Jumping from studio to studio \u2014 often playing four or five sessions a day \u2014 members of the crew accompanied by the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Ricky Nelson, Jan and Dean, Johnny Rivers , the Byrds, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, the Everly Brothers, Peggy Lee and scads more \u2014 nearly every prominent performer of the era.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The pace was relentless, Mr.  Pitman recalled in Denny Tedesco&#8217;s 2008 documentary, \u201cThe Wrecking Crew.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou leave the house at 7 in the morning, and you&#8217;re at Universal at 9 till noon,\u201d he said.  \u201cNow you&#8217;re at Capitol Records at 1. You just got time to get there, then you got a jingle at 4, then we&#8217;re on a date with somebody at 8, then the Beach Boys at midnight, and you do that five days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Pitman was heard on the soundtracks of some 200 films, including Robert Altman&#8217;s Korean War black comedy \u201cM*A*S*H\u201d (1970), Amy Heckerling&#8217;s comedy \u201cFast Times at Ridgemont High\u201d (1982), Emile Ardolino&#8217;s romantic musical drama \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d (1987) and Martin Scorsese&#8217;s gangster fable \u201cGoodfellas\u201d (1990).<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On television, Mr.  Pitman&#8217;s Danelectro bass guitar was heard for years on \u201cThe Wild Wild West.\u201d  He also worked on \u201cI Love Lucy,\u201d \u201cBonanza,\u201d \u201cThe Deputy,\u201d \u201cIronside,\u201d \u201cRowan and Martin&#8217;s Laugh-In,\u201d \u201cThe Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,\u201d \u201cThe Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour\u201d and many other shows.  He was credited with composing music for early episodes of the original \u201cStar Trek\u201d series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While generally indifferent toward rock, colleagues said, Mr.  Pitman played it well, sometimes expressing surprise at the success of his work in that genre.  He was far more enthusiastic about jazz, especially the work of composers and arrangers like Marty Paich, Dave Grusin and Johnny Mandel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Pitman, who grew up in New York City and had music tutors from the time he was 6 years old, came home from World War II and headed west determined to make a living in music.  He attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, learned arranging and composing, and essentially taught himself the skills of a master guitarist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1951, at a club where Peggy Lee was singing, he met the guitar virtuoso Laurindo Almeida, who was quitting Ms.  Lee&#8217;s band.  After an audition  Pitman was hired to take Mr.  Almeida&#8217;s place, and his career was launched.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1954 he joined the singer Rusty Draper&#8217;s daily radio show.  Three years later, he sat in for the guitarist Tony Rizzi at a recording date for Capitol Records.  It was his big break.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Word soon got around about the comer who could improvise with the best.  Mr.  Pitman got to know the session guitarists Howard Roberts, Jack Marshall, Al Hendrickson, Bob Bain and Bobby Gibbons, and he was soon one of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His fellow studio musicians included the drummer Hal Blaine, the guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Glen Campbell (before he had a hit-making singing career), the bassists Carol Kaye and Joe Osborn, and the keyboardists Don Randi and Leon Russell (who also went on to a successful solo singing career).  They coalesced around Phil Spector, the producer known for his \u201cwall of sound\u201d approach, who regularly employed them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While not publicly recognized in its era, this ensemble is viewed with reverence today by music historians and insiders.  Mr.  Blaine, who died in 2019, claimed that he named the Wrecking Crew.  But Ms.  Kaye insisted that he did not start using the name until years after its musicians stopped working together in the &#8217;70s.  In any case, there was no disagreement about Mr.  Pitman&#8217;s contributions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In his book \u201cConversations With Great Jazz and Studio Guitarists\u201d (2009), Jim Carlton called Mr.  Pitman a mainstay of the crew.  \u201cPerhaps no one personifies the unsung studio player like Bill Pitman does,\u201d he wrote.  \u201cFew guitarists have logged more recording sessions, and fewer still have enjoyed being such a legitimate part of America&#8217;s soundtrack.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">William Keith Pitman was born in Belleville, NJ, on Feb.  12, 1920, the only child of Keith and Irma (Kunze) Pitman.  His father was a staff bassist for NBC Radio and a busy freelance player in New York;  his mother was a Broadway dancer.  The family moved to Manhattan when Bill was 6, and he attended the Professional Children&#8217;s School.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When he was 13, his parents split up.  His mother joined a firm that made theater costumes.  His father gave him guitar lessons, and young Bill played 50-cent gigs with musicians who would later become famous, like the trumpeter Shorty Rogers and the drummer Shelly Manne.  But his schoolwork at Haaren High School in Manhattan, and he dropped out.  He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942, became a radio operator and flew many supply missions over the Himalayas from India to China during World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1947, he married Mildred Hurty.  They had three children and were divorced in the late 1960s.  In the &#8217;70s he married and divorced Debbie Yajacovic twice.  In 1985 he married Janet Valentine and adopted her daughter, Rosemary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Besides his wife, he is survived by his son, Dale;  his daughters, Donna Simpson, Jean Langdon and Rosemary Pitman;  four grandchildren;  and three great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Pitman quit session work in 1973 and went on the road, performing in concert with Burt Bacharach, Anthony Newley, Vikki Carr and others for several years.  In the late &#8217;70s he moved to Las Vegas, where he joined the music staff of the MGM Grand Hotel, playing for headliners well into the &#8217;80s.  He also continued to play on film soundtracks until he retired in 1989.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Pitman performed professionally only once in retirement \u2014 at a memorial concert in 2001 in Pasadena, Calif., for an old friend, Julius Wechter, leader of the Baja Marimba Band.  Mr.  Wechter, who died in 1999, had Tourette&#8217;s syndrome and was a spokesman for people with the disorder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Pitman continued writing arrangements, and at 99 he was still playing music \u2014 and golf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe plays the guitar at home just about every day,\u201d his wife said in an interview for this obituary in 2019. \u201cI am a bass player.  We play only jazz.  No rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll.\u201d  As for golf, she said, &#8220;He can still beat me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Pitman, a guitarist who accompanied by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and others from the late 1950s to the &#8217;70s, and who for decades was heard on the soundtracks of countless Hollywood films and television shows, died on Thursday night at his home in La Quinta, Calif. He was 102. His wife, Janet &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/bill-pitman-revered-studio-guitarist-is-dead-at-102\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bill Pitman, Revered Studio Guitarist, Is Dead at 102<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45854,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/renowned-guitarist-bill-pitman-of-the-wrecking-crew-dies-at-102\/","url_meta":{"origin":43746,"position":0},"title":"Renowned Guitarist Bill Pitman of The Wrecking Crew Dies at 102","date":"August 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill Pitman, a well-known guitarist, died on August 11 in his La Quinta, California home. 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