Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

In which Isaac Hayes creates a new kind of soul music through innovative orchestration and production. We're treated to 4 ostensibly pop songs with strings floating over The Bar-Kays throwing down psychedelic R&B grooves, and then there's Hayes' bass voice which adds the hot butter to this soul. Most songs are extended and build mightily to perceived climaxes but then just keep on building. Repetition has rarely been this good. This album changed the game. And why? Because Hayes demanded and received full creative control. From the book Soulsville, U.S.A., Hayes is quoted as saying:

I didn't give a damn if it didn't sell because I was going for the true artistic side, rather that looking at it for monetary value. I had an opportunity to express myself no holds barred, no restrictions, and that's why I did it. I took artistic and creative liberties. I felt what I had to say couldn't be said in two minutes and thirty seconds. So I just stretched [the songs] out and milked them for everything they were worth.

A seminal landmark album by a soul icon.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album at number 373 in their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and in 2017, it was ranked at #23 on Pitchfork's list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1960s.

Press of the time:

• CashBox: "Brilliant LP that deserves extra attention"
• Record World: "Hayes gets down in it on this package."
• Stereo Review: Recording of Special Merit
• Robert Christgau (C): "a baroque, luscious production job over the non-singing of one half of Sam & Dave's production-songwriting team."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200:  #8
• Billboard Best Selling Jazz LP: #1 (11 weeks)
• Billboard R&B: #1 (10 weeks)
• Record World Jazz: #1 (12 weeks)

Tracks:  My favorite tunes are the deconstructions of Walk On By and By The Time I Get To Phoenix (and deconstruction isn't even the right word to use there, but I can't come up with a better term for what Hayes does with those songs). Hyberbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic sounds like a groove laid down by the Meters and that's meant as a high compliment.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD:  None