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Can You Dig It?
Isaac Hayes | Fantasy Jazz
By Jim Santella

We've all been exposed to the music of Isaac Hayes. His film soundtracks and jazz-tinged funk have had their effect. Today he's also known for his role as a school cafeteria worker in the animated television series South Park. A leading romantic icon in the popular music world, he's given Stax Records a pile of great albums that blend jazz with blues and rock. Included in this two-CD set are tracks from several albums: Black Moses, Shaft, Presenting Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul, Isaac Hayes Wonderful, To Be Continued, The Isaac Hayes Movement, Chocolate Chip, Groove-a-thon, Joy and Isaac Hayes Live at the Sahara Tahoe, as well as the soundtracks from Three Tough Guys and Truck Turner.

Hayes, 63, grew up with his grandparents in Tennessee. Self-taught on piano, organ, and alto saxophone, he worked the nightclub circuit in Memphis as a teenager. His first LP presented the singer as a jazz-flavored soul artist who made quite an impression with his appearance as well as his comfortable grooves. The shaved head, heavy beard, and bare chest have become trademarks that are as recognizable as his powerful voice.

His “Theme from Shaft“ opens the album with its memorable groove and searing vocal. The song is repeated on the fifteen-minute DVD portion of the album, which is taken from an August 20, 1972 performance at the Los Angeles Coliseum with Rev. Jesse Jackson for the Wattstax Summer Festival. His in-person performance makes for a memorable affair.

The audio portion of the album brings that voice to life with clarity and a full emotional presence. Reaching back to his Tennessee roots, Hayes incorporates elements of heartfelt gospel into nearly everything that he approaches. His music sways with a loving heart, while he's constantly surrounded by a powerful rhythmic groove. Backup singers, horns, and strings add a deeper perspective to his musical arrangements.

Dionne Warwick makes an appearance with Hayes on “By the Time I Get to Phoenixâ€￾ and “I Say a Little Prayerâ€￾ that has the power to melt anyone's heart. Together, they convince evenly with grace and charm. In a creative mood, they interpret the two songs simultaneously and make perfect sense out of them. She sings “I Say a Little Prayerâ€￾ while he sings “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,â€￾ and their phrases overlap consonantly with ease. Feeling their way with a call and response arrangement, the two veteran artists deliver a lasting mood that has stood the test of time.

Spirituals such as “His Eye is on the Sparrowâ€￾ place Hayes in close communion with his audience. Three tracks that appear here have not been issued previously. “Brand New Me,â€￾ “If Loving You is Wrong,â€￾ and “His Eye is on the Sparrow,â€￾ which were recorded live in 1972 at Jesse Jackson's PUSH Expo in Chicago, give Can You Dig It? a powerful lift. Hayes' bared soul and natural form of communication open up pathways to the heavens in the same way that he's opened up doors to mass audiences of emotional souls the world over.

Track Listing: CD1: Theme from Shaft; Precious, Precious; Hyperbolicyllabicsesquedalymistic; Ain't that Loving You (for More Reasons than One); Never Can Say Goodbye; By the Time I Get to Phoenix; Soulsville; Wonderful; Help Me Love; Need to Belong to Someone; Good Love; The Look of Love; Do Your Thing; For the Good Times; I Stand Accused. CD2: Walk On By; Joy (Part 1); His Eye is on the Sparrow; Brand New Me; If Loving You is Wrong (I Don't Want to be Right); Someone Made You for Me; Baby I'm-a Want You; Let's Stay Together; Theme from The Men; I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You); Title Theme (from Three Tough Guys); Run Fay Run; Chocolate Chip; Come Live With Me; Disco Connection; Rock Me Easy Baby (Part 1); Medley: By the Time I Get to Phoenix/I Say a Little Prayer. DVD: Rolling Down a Mountainside; Theme from Shaft; Soulsville; Chocolate Salty Balls.

Personnel: Isaac Hayes: vocal, piano, vibraphone, organ, electric piano, alto saxophone, xylophone; Michael Toles, Charles "Skip" Pitts, Harold Beane, Sammy Watts, William Vaughan, Anthony Shinault: guitar; Lester Snell, Marvel Thomas, Sidney Kirk: keyboards; James Alexander, Donald "Duck" Dunn, William Murphy, Ronald Hudson, Erroll Thomas: bass; Willie Hall, Al Jackson, Jr.: drums; Jimmy Lee Thompson: congas; Gary Jones: congas, bongos; Willie Cole: percussion; David Porter, Dionne Warwick: vocals; others.

Jam! Showbiz Thu, 10 Nov 2005

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2005/11/10/1300953-ap.html

Can You Dig It?

By LARRY MCSHANE

In this early 1970s photo released in New York by 60 Cycle Media, recording artist/radio personality Isaac Hayes is shown. (AP/HO/Norman Seeff)

NEW YORK (AP) - It's a difficult image to conjure: Isaac Hayes struggling to overcome a nasty case of stage fright.

Surely not the hippest guy in the room, the epitome of cool. Not the genius behind the soundtrack for Shaft. Not the voice of Chef on South Park. And yet it happened.

It was back in the late '60s, at the Masonic Temple in Detroit. Hayes was making his first-ever live appearance, sharing the bill with the established Staple Singers, and he wasn't sure how the audience would greet him.

"I had on some hippie-type outfit," says Hayes, 63, his deep laugh rumbling at the recollection. "I had on red, white and blue pants, and moccasins. A purple shirt, and a terrycloth floppy hat. I was dressed weird, you know?"

Then Hayes made a joke, and the audience laughed. He removed the hat, revealing his shaved head, "and the ladies screamed," Hayes said.

Goodbye, stage fright. Hello, career.


Hayes, calling from his home base in Memphis, is reminiscing about his 1969-75 run at Stax Records - a memorable era captured on the new 2-CD collection Ultimate Isaac Hayes - Can You Dig It?

The collection, released Nov. 1, runs the gamut of Hayes' amazing output at the time, from hits like Theme from Shaft to the gospel sounds of His Eye Is On the Sparrow to a rarely heard duet with Dionne Warwick.

Shaft, with its indelible hi-hat cymbal riff, earned Hayes a pair of Grammys. The soundtrack album stayed on the charts for 60 weeks, and changed the way that movies treated music. Movie soundtrack albums became a money-making genre, with artists from Curtis Mayfield (Superfly) to Marvin Gaye (Trouble Man) following Hayes' lead.

Hayes was one of the pioneers in breaking other traditional music business boundaries, whether by mixing his funk with a string section or stretching out on a 12-minute cover of the Warwick hit Walk on By.

"I felt what I had to say musically could not be said in two minutes and thirty seconds," Hayes said. "So I did my thing. If it was a hit, great. But I just did what I wanted creatively."

Hayes was a presence on the musical scene before his debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, was released in 1969. With partner David Porter, he wrote the hits Soul Man, I Thank You and Hold On, I'm Coming for Sam and Dave. He was in great demand as a session player and producer.

But it wasn't until his second solo album, Hot Buttered Soul, that the music was given the full Hayes treatment. His earlier songs, Hayes said, were limited by Stax owner Jim Stewart's "meat and potatoes" approach to recording.

Hayes had something different in mind.

"I'd been hearing things in my head for a long time, but I'd been restricted," Hayes said. "Now I did what I felt. . . . When I had the opportunity to do my own thing, that's when I thought about strings and different chords."

By the time of his album To Be Continued, he was in the studio with violins, trumpets, French horns and flutes. And he became regarded as a brilliant interpreter of other writers' songs - sort of the Sinatra of soul.

Coming up with often outrageous arrangements for music by Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, Al Green and Kris Kristofferson was as rewarding for Hayes as writing his own tunes.

"I like to see how people responded," said Hayes. "I liked that. It was a big validation."

Even bigger was meeting with Bacharach and Webb, who each expressed their admiration for Hayes' covers.

These days, Hayes is keeping himself plenty busy. He's working on a children's book, and promoting a cookbook aimed at helping people fight hypertension (the ailment claimed his grandfather, his father and good friend Barry White). And he's still rolling with the cast from South Park, playing school cafeteria kingpin Chef.

He's doing a local radio show. And he's working on a new album - his first since 1995's dual release, Branded and Raw & Refined - with veteran drummer Steve Jordan.

As the conversation continued, Hayes recalled another live performance, when he was long past his struggle with stage fright.

He was in a place called the Tiki Bar, sharing the stage with R&B greats the Bar-Kays. Hayes planned to play a song by Glenn Campbell - that's right, Black Moses doing a cover of the Rhinestone Cowboy.

There was chatter in the crowd, and Hayes started talking as the band vamped, telling the story of a jilted lover's lonely life. And then he began to sing: "By the time I get to Phoenix ..."

"The audience said, 'Whoa,"' Hayes remembered. "When I finished the tune, there were maybe a few dry eyes in the house - but not many. I got a standing ovation."