716 Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

 716 Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul (1969)

Studio Album - Soul



About the Act:

Isaac Hayes was a Soul Singer from Tennessee. He was a songwriter, session musician and producer for Stax records, and together with a guy called David Porter, wrote some really impressive soul songs, including Soul Man. He composed the theme music for the film "Shaft" and played "Chef" in the TV show South Park. He is the honorary king of a region of Ghana. He has had an acting career also, and has released 21 studio albums. He died in 2008

About the Album: 

This was his second album. He didn't want to make the album, because his first album had tanked. His label (for whom he was working as a songwriter and session musician), persuaded him because, for complicated corporate and contractual reasons they had a severe shortage of album. He agreed on the proviso that he had full artistic control. They were fine with that, as they had tried to persuade him to do so for the first album. In the end, it sold well, and critics liked it too.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

This is the heart of soul, and in some ways as clichéd as you like, but maybe it would be better to call it a seminal soul album. 

There are four tracks. They are long. The first is a cover of Walk on By, which I knew from the Dione Warwick version. It's long, and soulful, and very interesting chord used (not the normal chords). It starts with a long instrumental jam, and ends with one too. It is sung in a very laconic, and soulful-lagging-behind-expectations way.

The second song is the only one written by Isaac (with someone else) and is called "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic", and is up-beat verging on funk.

The third track is "One Woman", about a man with two women: "One woman is making my home, the other is making me do wrong"... yes it is about a man who is having an affair and is torn between the two women. It's my least favourite song on the album, mostly because I'm not too keen on the subject matter.

Finally we have "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" which is the longest track on the album, most of which is a monologue telling the story behind the song, in a Theophilis P Wildebeest way (or Barry White if you prefer). You can really hear the gospel roots of soul here, as this is like the preaching in a Southern Baptist church in some ways. It's a huge cliché, but it's fine.

Musically, there are the instruments you would expect for soul - normal band stuff like guitar, bass, drums, an organ, brass, and orchestral backing with strings and woodwind, and backing singers, and the kitchen sink too.

Isaac's voice is rich like warm honey and deep like a really deep honeypot. If you like soul of this type then you will love this album. It almost feels like a live album, there is so much in the way of instrument jams, and just taking time over things. 

I enjoyed it, quite a bit. This is what I think of as "Proper Soul".

7.2/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/71rxIr6MJYUzDG9ge6Jq3J

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW1I1q-N4uM

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Buttered_Soul



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

840 Various Artists - The Best of Girl Groups Volumes 1 and 2 (1990)

Image
 840 Various Artists - The Best of Girl Groups Volumes 1 and 2 (1990) Compilation (double) - Girl Group (Soul/Bobby Soxer/Do-Wop) About the Album: This is a highly acclaimed compilation in 2CDs by Rhino Records. It's the sort of thing that in this country you might expect to see at 3.99 in a Garden Centre. My History with this Album: None Review: There are not many multi-artist compilations in this series for reviewing. There is not information about it on Wikipedia, but the reception seems to have been positive. It is choc-full of hits with a smattering of lesser-known songs, and it's hard not to imagine Grease or similar situations - girls with cardigans and white socks, listening to the juke box while sipping milkshakes in the drug store. On one level it's a fun collection of songs that you could use to feel nostalgic, or as the music for a themed party. On another level it's kind of like a cultural artefact. I feel honour-bound to describe it, even though if I drop
Read more

944 Manu Chao - Próxima Estación Esperanza (2001)

Image
 944 Manu Chao - Próxima Estación Esperanza (2001) Studio Album - World Music About the Act: Manu Chao is a French-Spanish musician of Spanish descent who grew up on the outskirts of Paris. In the mid-80s he was in a Spanish/English rockabilly group called Hot Pants. In 1987, with his brother and cousin he founded the band Mano Negra, combining punk and world music influences and playing on the Paris Metro. This band took off and had 4 studio albums. In 1995 Manu "went solo", forming the band Radio Bemba Sound System to be his backing band. The punk elements were less prominent, but he started to make music that "replicates the sound of street music and bar scenes from a variety of cultures". He has been really popular in parts of Europe.  About the Album: This album was Manu Chao's second studio album as a "solo" artist. In Spanish, the name means "Next Station: Hope", after a real station on the Madrid Metro. The album reached top 10 slots
Read more

591 Harry Smith, Ed. - Anthology of American Folk Music (1952)

Image
 591 Harry Smith, Ed. - Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) Compilation Album - Americana About the Act: Harry Smith is not the performer here, he is the collector. He was a film-maker, occultist, and eccentric. About the Album: Harry Smith had a collection of early 78rpm records of various "folk" styles dated from 1927 when such things first started to be commercially available to 1932 when the Great Depression put a stop to the sales of folk records. In 1947 he approached a label, Folkway Records, about releasing a collection of them transferred onto LPs. This they did in 1952, without seeking copyright permission, making this technically a bootleg. It was released as three double-LP boxed sets, and sold very poorly. In the first year it sold 50 copies, 47 to libraries and colleges. It was reissued later, and gained traction and sold better. It now has a reputation for being one of the most influential compilations in the history of Americana, and is cited as being a ma
Read more