Isaac Hayes

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Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes 

Shades, dashiki, gleaming bald pate: Isaac Hayes cut an imposing figure during his early '70s heyday. The hulking auteur behind the ultra funky "Theme From Shaft" was actually a Barry White prototype, given to steamy bedroom raps and lush orchestrations. Or maybe he wasn't: The remainder of the Shaft soundtrack is rather mundane action-movie music, spiced by the occasional burst of streetwise syncopation or vocal color. A far cry from Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly, to say the least. However, Hayes shouldn't be written off as a period oddity. His rambling soundtracks (two of which, Truck Turner and Three Tough Guys, are available on a single CD) and full-blown cover version had a big effect on soul music in general, broadening and softening the instrumental palette. Hayes paved the way for disco; whether he deserves credit or blame is a matter of taste.

Hayes and David Porter made up one of the most successful songwriting and production teams at Stax/Volt. When they started to drift apart in the late '60s, Hayes began to record under his own name. Presenting Isaac Hayes, his 1967 debut, is a loose and bluesy after-hours jam session. Hot Buttered Soul, the 1969 followup, must have seemed like the eccentric vanity project of a brilliant behind-the-scenes man- until it reached the pop Top 10 anyway.

Elongated and embellished to the point of sonic overkill, "Walk On By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" saunter through full-blown rearrangements. The former song entered the Top 40 as an edited single, although the full-length version of the latter (Soul's entire second side of vinyl) established the Hayes game plan. Using the basic melody as theme and springboard, Hayes ruminates on the vagaries of romance in a spoken intro that takes up nearly half the song. His words aren't cued to the rhythm like a modern rapper's, but the contrast between the smoothly spoken and haltingly sung sections adds a delicate tension. Hot Buttered Soul is a landmark album.

Spread across two hour-long CDs, Ultimate Isaac Hayes (Can You Dig It?) conveys the maddening expansiveness of his Stax records. The collection includes the essential "Theme from Shaft" and "Walk On By," along with all 19 minutes of the rote "Do Your Thing." The collection also includes delicious silk-and-molasses crawl through "Never Can Say Goodbye" and the full version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." A collection of single edits- a distillation album- would be less authentic, but more approachable.

Though he occasionally dented the charts in the mid- to late '70s, Hayes sounds like he's playing catch-up on his disco period entries. (Most of his work from this period, including Disco Connection, New Horizon, and Don't Let Go, are hard to find and due for a proper re-issuing). Even the bubbly "Don't Let Go," from 1980, has nowhere near the commanding presence of earlier Hayes concoctions. And "Love Attack," from the otherwise forgettable album of the same name, lays claim to hip-hop over a soupy, unsympathetic beat. Perhaps modern technology makes Hayes and his bodacious sense of scale seem anachronistic, but then again, Shaft's stuttering wah-wah rhythm has launched many a rap jam.

Hayes has continued to release albums regularly in recent years, but his only consequential recent work was 1995's Branded, cut for the boutique blues label Point Blank Records. He was introduced to the contemporary audience via the '90s animated series South Park; his deathless "Chocolate Salty Balls" is on the South Park-related Chef Aid as well as the soundtrack to the feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. More recently, he appeared in the remake of Shaft (2000) and on Alicia Keys' best-selling album Songs in A Minor. Hayes passed away in 2008. What more can ya' say?

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Isaac Hayes