CoronaVinyl Day 199 (H): Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes

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Hello, children!  Today's CoronaVinyl category is "H," and my choice is a soul classic, Isacc Hayes's second studio album, 1969's Hot Buttered Soul.

For much of the '60s Hayes had been working behind the scenes as a songwriter, producer, and backing musician at what, in my opinion, is the best soul record label there ever was, Memphis's Stax Records.  Along with his Stax songwriting partner David Porter, Hayes co-wrote many soul classics for other artists, including Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and "Hold On, I'm Comin'," among others.

In 1968, Hayes released his first solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, which was a commercial failure and failed to chart.  Hot Buttered Soul certainly made up for it, going to #8 on the Billboard album chart, becoming the first of seven of his albums that reached #1 on the Billboard R&B album chart.  Hayes is backed by the legendary Bar-Kays, formerly Otis Redding's backing band who had re-formed after several of the members died in the same December 1967 plane crash that killed Redding, so the Memphis soul pedigree on this album is top notch.  Hot Buttered Soul is an exhibition in psychedelic soul jamming.  There are only four songs on the album, clocking in at an average of over 11 minutes each.  Rather than choosing a favorite from each side, I'll just briefly discuss all four songs.  

Side 1
The first song is a 12-minute cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David-penned song "Walk On By" that had been a Top 10 hit for Dionne Warwick in 1964.  Hayes's version is darker and more brooding than the original.  It was cut down to five minutes for a single version, which reached #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #13 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.  Hayes's version has been sampled by various rap and hip hop artists over the years, including both 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G.  

The second song on Side 1 is the 9+-minute "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic," which Hayes co-wrote with Stax producer/songwriter/executive (and future co-owner) Al Bell, who co-produced Hot Buttered Soul.  It has some early funk elements, but it's mostly just a soul jam.  Without doing any research, I'm assuming the long title of combined words was an influence on Parliament and Funkadelic's song titling, which often did the same type of thing.

Side 2
The first track is "One Woman," which is a mere five minutes long.  It's a little sappier than the other songs on the album, with more strings, which doesn't tamper the message of the song, which is "One woman's makin' my home / While the other woman is makin' me do wrong."  

The final track on the album is a nearly 19-minute cover of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," which was the third-most performed song between 1940 and 1990, according to BMI.  Written by Jimmy Webb, it was most famously recorded by Glen Campbell in 1967 and was a huge hit for him.  In Webb's original version, the singer explains that he left a Dear John note for his woman, and that he would be (1) in Phoenix by the time she read it (and she would probably think it's a joke because he's told her many times before that he was going to leave her, but he never did, presumably because he's outkicking his coverage), (2) in Albuquerque by the time she tried to call him during her lunch break at work, and (3) in Oklahoma by night, when she finally realized he was gone for good and maybe she shouldn't have been such a bitch (paraphrasing).  Hayes's version expounds on the original, explaining what happened leading up to the singer's decision to leave his lady.  A shortened version was released as a single and went to #37 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard R&B singles chart.

Hayes would go on to a long and successful career in music, as a recording artist, songwriter, film score composer, and producer.  Perhaps his best-known work is his score for the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, which garnered Hayes two Grammy Awards, as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Theme from Shaft."  He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and, along with Porter, into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.  Of course, he was also the voice of Chef in South Park from 1997 to 2006.  He died in 2008 at the age of 65.