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#1 Soul Brother · by Sach O
I can’t go to sleep.
Isaac Hayes – Rolling down a Mountain Side
Isaac Hayes – Tough Guys theme
Isaac Hayes – Do Your Thing
Isaac Hayes – Precious Precious
Isaac Hayes – The Look of Love
Isaac Hayes – Theme from The Men (instrumental)
Stax Records is my favorite soul label and studio. Don’t get me wrong, Motown is pretty much pop-perfection and Willie Mitchell’s classics for Hi Records are unfuckwitable but in my mind they’ve got nothing on Stax. Hell I don’t think I could live without my George Clinton, Barry White and James Brown productions and God forbid you forget Muscle Shoals’ output but even they pale in comparison to the incredible funk that was cooking over at Soulsville U.S.A. Stax was that sweet spot, marrying the dirty bluesy southern roots of black music to the sophisticated orchestrations that would define its future. Stax was the right sound at the right time, the gung-ho embodiment of black America lifting the shackles of oppression and doing it in style.
Today the face of that sound, that style, passed away.
I’m not going eulogize Isaac Hayes when the music can speak for itself. Lord knows there are people better suited for lengthy write ups, people who knew him or who’ve followed his career from the start. People who didn’t first discover him as a comical cartoon Chef. Obsessives with every perfect extended groove he ever released. But all those eulogies won’t cut it anyways: no wordy reflections on Isaac Hayes’ life and craft could possibly capture the energy, the dynamics and the sheer groove of his music. If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, you’d need the Rock Steady Crew and Frank Gehry to even start to describe how far Black Moses took soul from 3 minutes of rawness to black symphonies.
Ask your favorite rapper. Everyone from Cypress Hill, to Biggie to Pac, to Jay-Z to Wu-Tang to Rakim to the Jungles Brothers have rapped over the man’s records. And stylistic mavericks from Puffy to Ghostface owe him a debt of gratitude: they’d probably be rocking beads if it wasn’t for Hayes’ gold chain rocking swagger. Hell, even moping Brits are indebted to him: Hayes’ grooves were so elastic, so full of potential that even Portishead and Tricky (acts that are far from funky) couldn’t help but grab them.
But that’s not important right now. All I want to do is listen to the music. Isaac Hayes is gone and the world just got a little less funky. Get down.
Comments for "#1 Soul Brother"
Our world has lost another titan.
Rest In Peace.
— Franklin Mint Aug 11, 12:22 AM
Very decent anti-obituary. I respect that.
R.I.P.
— Jay B Aug 11, 01:51 AM
Hello there!
It is a shame that Isaac Hayes has passed away…and a day after black people all over the world were just bracing themselves after hearing about the passing of Bernie McCullough…
At the height of his career, Isaac Hayes represented a different type of black masculinity. He had a lot of mystery about him. Many women found him to be extremely sexy, although he was not the “all-American pretty boy type”...
I pray that he is resting with God. He was a legend who did not make his people ashamed with any scandals….
Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!
Lisa
***Please feel welcome to drop by:
http://blackwomenblowthetrumpet.blogspot.com
— BlackWomenBlowTheTrumpet.blogspot.com Aug 11, 02:12 AM
damn shame
— amber Aug 11, 08:18 PM
dude rocked chains like none other
— sankofa Aug 12, 05:45 PM