Top Forty US and UK albums

    1969: Hot Buttered Soul
    1970: The Isaac Hayes Movement (by The Isaac Hayes Movement,
    1970: ...To Be Continued
    1971: Shaft
    1971: Black Moses
    1973: Joy
    1973: Live at the Sahara Tahoe
    1975: Chocolate Chip
    1979: Don't Let Go









Isaac Hayes







Top Forty US and UK singles

    1969: "Walk On By"
    1969: "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"
    1971: "Theme from Shaft"
    1971: "Never Can Say Goodbye"
    1972: "Do Your Thing"
    1973: "Joy"
    1980: "Don't Let Go"
    1998: (as Chef) "Chocolate Salty Balls"




Selected songwriting and production with David Porter

    1965: "Candy" by The Astors
    1965: "You Don't Know Like I Know" by Sam & Dave
    1966: "Let Me Be Good to You" by Carla Thomas
    1966: "B-A-B-Y" by Carla Thomas
    1966: "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" by Mabel John(later a big hit by Lou Rawls) .
    1966: "Hold On, I'm Comin'" by Sam & Dave
    1967: "When Something is Wrong with My Baby" by Sam & Dave
    1967: "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave
    1968: "I Thank You" by Sam & Dave
    1969: "So I Can Love You" by The Emotions (production only)
    1969: "The Sweeter He Is" by The Soul Children
    1969: "Soul Sister Brown Sugar" by Sam & Dave
    1979: "Deja Vu" by Dionne Warwick (co-written by Hayes and Adrienne Anderson)
    2000: "I Can't Go To Sleep" by Wu-Tang Clan











Isaac Hayes











Isaac Hayes

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Isaac Hayes

Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American songwriter, musician, singer, and occasionally an actor. Hayes was one of the creative geniuses behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record 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. This song was also honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by the RIAA as the Songs of the Century. During the late 1960s, Hayes also became a recording musician, and he recorded several successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971). In addition to his work in popular music, Hayes worked as composer of musical scores for motion pictures.

Hayes is well known for his musical score for the film Shaft (1971). For his composition of the Theme from Shaft, Hayes was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1972. Other than such distinguished actors as Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel, Hayes became the first African-American to win an Academy Award in any field whatsoever covered by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Hayes also won two Grammy Awards for that same year. Later, he was given his third Grammy Award for his music album Black Moses.

During 1992, in recognition of his humanitarian work there, Hayes was crowned as the honorary king of the Ada, Ghana region. Hayes also acted in motion pictures and television, such as in the movie, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Then from 1997 to 2005, he lent his distinctive, deep voice to the character "Chef" on the animated TV series South Park, and also to Gandolf "Gandy" Fitch in the TV series The Rockford Files (1974 – 80). On August 5, 2003, Isaac Hayes was honored as a BMI Icon at the 203 BMI Urban Awards for his enduring influence on generations of music makers. Throughout his songwriting career, Hayes received five BMI R&B Awards, two BMI Pop Awards, two BMI Urban Awards and six Million-Air citations. As of 2008, his songs generated more than 12 million performances.


Isaac Hayes Shaft


Stax Records and Shaft



Hayes began his recording career in the early 1960s, as a session player for various acts of the Memphis-based Stax Records. He later wrote a string of hit songs with songwriting partner David Porter, including "You Don't Know Like I Know", "Soul Man", "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", and "Hold On I'm Comin" for Sam & Dave. Hayes, Porter and Stax studio band Booker T. & the M.G.'s were also the producers for Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas and other Stax artists during the mid-1960s. Hayes-Porter contributed to the Stax sound made famous during this period, and Sam & Dave credited Hayes for helping develop both their sound and style. In 1968, Hayes released his debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, a jazzy, largely improvised effort that was commercially unsuccessful.

His next album was Hot Buttered Soul, which was released in 1969 after Stax had gone through a major upheaval. The label had lost its largest star, Otis Redding, in a plane crash in December 1967. Stax lost all of its back catalog to Atlantic Records in May 1968. As a result, Stax executive vice president Al Bell called for 27 new albums to be completed in mid-1969; Hot Buttered Soul, was the most successful of these releases. This album is noted for Hayes' image (shaved head, gold jewelry, sunglasses, etc.) and his distinct sound (extended orchestral songs relying heavily on organs, horns, and guitars, deep bass vocals, etc.). Also on the album, Hayes re-interprets "Walk On By" (which had been made famous by Dionne Warwick) into a twelve-minute exploration. "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" starts with an eight-minute long monologue before breaking into song, and the lone original number, the funky "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" runs nearly ten minutes, a significant break from the standard three minute soul/pop songs.

"Walk On By" would be the first of many times Hayes would take a Burt Bacharach standard, generally made famous as three-minute pop songs by Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield, and transform it into a soulful, lengthy and almost gospel number.

In 1970, Hayes released two albums, The Isaac Hayes Movement and To Be Continued. The former stuck to the four-song template of his previous album. Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused" begins with a trademark spoken word monologue, and Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" is re-worked. Isaac HayesThe latter spawned the classic "The Look Of Love", another Bacharach song transformed into an eleven-minute epic of lush orchestral rhythm (mid-way it breaks into a rhythm guitar jam for a couple of minutes before suddenly resuming the slow love song). An edited three-minute version was issued as a single. The album also featured the instrumental "Ike's Mood," which segued into his own version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling". Hayes released a Christmas single, "The Mistletoe and Me" (with "Winter Snow" as a B-side).

In early 1971, Hayes composed music for the soundtrack of the blaxploitation film Shaft. (in the movie, he also appeared in a cameo role as the bartender of No Name Bar). The title theme, with its wah-wah guitar and multi-layered symphonic arrangement, would become a worldwide hit single, and spent two weeks at number one in the Billboard Hot 100 in November. The remainder of the album was mostly instrumentals covering big beat jazz, bluesy funk, and hard Stax-styled soul. The other two vocal songs, the social commentary "Soulville" and the nineteen-minute jam "Do Your Thing," would be edited down to hit singles. Hayes won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the "Theme from Shaft," and was nominated for Best Original Dramatic Score for the film's score.

Later in the year, Hayes released a double album, Black Moses, that expanded on his earlier sounds and featured The Jackson 5's song "Never Can Say Goodbye". Another single, "I Can't Help It", was not featured on the album.

In 1972, Hayes would record the theme tune for the TV series The Men and enjoy a hit single (with "Type Thang" as a B-side).[9] He released several other non-album singles during the year, such as "Feel Like Making Love", "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)", and "Rolling Down a Mountainside". Atlantic would re-release Hayes' debut album this year with the new title In The Beginning.

Hayes was back in 1973 with an acclaimed live double album, Live At Sahara Tahoe, and followed it up with the album Joy, with the eerie beat of the fifteen-minute title track. He moved away from cover songs with this album. An edited "Joy" would be a hit single.

In 1974, Hayes was featured in the blaxploitation films Three Tough Guys and Truck Turner, and he recorded soundtracks for both. Tough Guys was almost devoid of vocals and Truck Turner yielded a single with the title theme. The soundtrack score was eventually used by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in the Kill Bill film series and has been used for over 30 years as the opening score of Brazilian radio show Jornal de Esportes on the Jovem Pan station.

On March 20, 2006, Roger Friedman of Fox News reported that Hayes had suffered a minor stroke in January.[29] Hayes' spokeswoman, Amy Harnell, denied that Hayes had a stroke,[30] but on October 26, 2006, Hayes himself confirmed that he had suffered a stroke.[31] Two years later, Hayes was found unconscious in his home located just east of Memphis on August 10, 2008, as reported by the Shelby County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department. A Shelby County Sheriff's deputy and an ambulance from Rural Metro responded to his home after his wife found him on the floor near a still-running treadmill. Hayes was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead at 2:08pm. Hayes was ten days from his 66th birthday. The cause of death was not immediately clear, though the area medical examiners later listed a recurrence of stroke as the cause of death


    Hayes is buried in the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee
    God looked around his garden
    And he found an empty place
    He then looked down upon this earth
    And found your star
    He put his arms around you
    And lifted you to rest
    God's garden is beautiful now
    He always takes the best [...]
    INSCRIPTION ON ISAAC HAYES' GRAVE MARKER



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By 1974, Stax Records was having serious financial problems, stemming from problems with overextension and limited record sales and distribution. Hayes himself was deep in debt to Union Planters Bank, which administered loans for the Stax label and many of its other key employees. In September of that year, Hayes sued Stax for $5.3 million. As Stax was in deep debt and could not pay, the label made an arrangement with Hayes and Union Planters: Stax released Hayes from his recording and production contracts, and Union Planters would collect all of Hayes' income and apply it towards his debts.

Hayes formed his own label, Hot Buttered Soul, which released its product through ABC Records. His new album, 1975's Chocolate Chip saw Hayes embrace the disco sound with the title track and lead single. "I Can't Turn Around" would prove a popular song as time went on. This would be Hayes' last album to chart top 40 for many years. Later in the year, the all instrumental Disco Connection album fully embraced disco.

In 1976, the album cover of Juicy Fruit featured Hayes in a pool with naked women, and spawned the title track single and the classic "Storm Is Over". Later the same year the Groove-A-Thon album featured the singles "Rock Me Easy Baby" and the title track. However, while all these albums were regarded as solid efforts, Hayes was no longer selling large numbers. He and his wife were forced into bankruptcy in 1976, as they owed over $6 million. By the end of the bankruptcy proceedings in 1977, Hayes had lost his home, much of his personal property, and the rights to all future royalties earned from the music he'd written, performed, and produced.



In 1995 Hayes appeared as a Las Vegas minister impersonating Isaac Hayes in the comedy series the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Hayes launched a comeback on the Virgin label in May 1995 with Branded, an album of new material that earned impressive sales figures as well as positive reviews from critics who proclaimed it a return to form. A companion album released around the same time, Raw and Refined, featured a collection of previously unreleased instrumentals, both old and new.





In a rather unexpected career move shortly thereafter, Hayes charged back into the public consciousness as a founding star of Comedy Central's controversial — and wildly successful — animated TV series, South Park. Hayes provided the voice for the character of "Chef", the amorous elementary-school lunchroom cook, from the show's debut on August 13, 1997 (one week shy of his 55th birthday), through the end of its ninth season in 2006. The role of Chef drew on Hayes's talents both as an actor and as a singer, thanks to the character's penchant for making conversational points in the form of crudely suggestive soul songs.

An album of songs from the series appeared in 1998 with the title Chef Aid: The South Park Album reflecting Chef's popularity with the show's fans, and the Chef song "Chocolate Salty Balls" became a number-one U.K. hit. However, when South Park leaped to the big screen the following year with the smash animated musical South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Hayes/Chef was the only major character who did not perform a showcase song in the film; his lone musical contribution was "Good Love," a track on the soundtrack album which originally appeared on Black Moses in 1971 and is not heard in the movie.

In 2000, Isaac Hayes appeared in the soundtrack of the French film "The Magnet" on the song "Is It Really Home" written and composed by rapper Akhenaton (IAM) and composer Bruno Coulais.

Hayes was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. The same year, a documentary highlighting Isaac's career and his impact on many of the Memphis artists in the 1960s onwards was produced, "Only The Strong Survive".

In 2004, Hayes appeared in a recurring minor role as the Jaffa Tolok on the television series Stargate SG-1. The following year, he appeared in the critically acclaimed independent film Hustle & Flow.





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