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



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