It’s Sunday POU Family and lurkers! I hope that everyone is having a great weekend. Let’s sit back and celebrate the music of Isaac Hayes.
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American songwriter, musician, singer, actor, and voice actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as arecord producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes, Porter, Bill Withers, the Sherman Brothers, Steve Cropper, and John Fogerty were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of notable songs for themselves, the duo Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and others.
The hit song “Soul Man”, written by Hayes and Porter and first performed by Sam & Dave, has been recognized as one of the most influential songs of the past 50 years by the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by the RIAA as one of the Songs of the Century.
He is well known for his musical score for the film Shaft (1971). For the “Theme from Shaft“, he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1972. He became the third African-American, after Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel, to win an Academy Award in any competitive field covered by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He also won two Grammy Awards for that same year. Later, he was given his third Grammy for his music album Black Moses.
Hot Buttered Soul has also been deemed a classic, the album was notable for its use of innovative Bell/Hayes production and Terry Manning engineering techniques, and has deeply influenced a great deal of subsequent soul, hip hop and Motown music. Both “Walk On By” and “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” have been sampled extensively, the former showing up on tracks by the likes of Compton’s Most Wanted, 3rd Bass, MF DOOM, Wu-Tang Clan, Hooverphonic and Notorious B.I.G., while the latter song was sampled by Public Enemy for “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”.
Shaft – 1971
Do Your Thing – 1971
Walk On By- 1969
By the Time I Get to Phoenix – 1969
Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic – 1969
I Stand Accused -1970