[ t e x t . o n l y . v e r s i o n ] [ b y . c y c l o n e . w e h n e r ]
Isaac Hayes doesn't need any introduction. Surely his legend speaks for
itself. Isaac has long cut a striking figure with his shaved head, gold
chains and flashy stage costumes that reveal a sexy bare chest. Yet on the
day we meet, Hayes is dressed casually in jeans and a sweater with a logo
that promotes literacy -- just one of the many humanitarian causes close to
his heart. There are many facets to Hayes. His self-mythologising has taken
any number of twists and turns. Nowadays Isaac, who was raised a Baptist,
is a Scientologist who (among other things) likes to cook (so long as it's
healthy -- not soul food).
Indeed, this quietly-spoken soul-funk auteur was raised to iconic status
not long after he put out the "Shaft" soundtrack in the early 70s. Hayes
didn't just place Memphis Soul on the map. He also cut soul music's first
fully-fledged concept album, "Hot Buttered Soul", and set the standard for
movie soundtracks with "Shaft'. And, over time, Hayes paved the way for
both disco and rap music.
The Isaac Hayes Story starts in Covington, Tennessee, where Isaac was born
just over 60 years ago. Hayes was brought up by his rural grandparents,
later moving with them to Memphis. His earliest exposure to music came from
the Southern Baptist Church -- he sang in the choir. Isaac went on to
become a multi-instrumentalist. He made a name for himself on the local
circuit in a couple of bands. Eventually this led to Hayes being taken in
by Stax-Volt Records in 1964 when he was hired to work as a session muso
for Otis Redding. Here Hayes was able to develop from a musician-for-hire
into an all-rounded talent.
His first successes came as half of an inspired and prolific songwriting
team. Together with lyricist David Porter, Hayes turned out what now stands
as a vast catalogue of classic songs. The duo's most enduring hits were
recorded by Sam And Dave ("Hold On I'm Comin'", "Soul Man").
Hayes made the transition from studio boffin to artist in the late 60s with
his debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, which, as with much of his work,
evolved out of a jam session.
Nevertheless, it wasn't until Isaac's sophomore effort, "Hot Buttered
Soul", that he broke through commercially. It was an unlikely crossover
project. Hayes broke completely with the widely accepted structure of the
pop song. The album consisted of just four extended tracks.
The trademark Isaac Hayes' sound is opulent, multi-tiered, heavily
orchestrated, sweeping and, above all, unrestrained. Even more notable is
the fact that Hayes' seminal albums are dominated by covers. Hayes would
radically reinterpret -- or re-arrange -- popular songs in his own style
("By The Time I Get To Phoenix", "Walk On By"), in the same way that, say,
the 90s' more canny dance producers (Thomas Bangalter, Armand Van Helden)
have modified old disco hits.
But, even after "Hot Buttered Soul", Hayes greatest work was yet to come.
In the early 70s Hayes scored the Gordan Parks blaxploitation movie,
"Shaft". The double-album went on to reach platinum sales and produced the
number one hit "Theme From Shaft". Hayes won two Grammies and became the
first African-American composer to land an Oscar.
Things came unstuck, though, in the mid-70s when Hayes left Stax amid a
dispute over royalties. He launched his own label, Hot Buttered Soul,
through an affiliation with ABC Records and released the "Chocolate Chip"
album. Sales of this LP were disappointing. And, to make things worse,
Hayes' next few albums would be totally lost in the disco era. The general
consensus was that Hayes had lost his magic touch.
However, the Southerner has never been one to admit defeat. At the same
time as Hayes' record sales began to flag, his acting career took off.
Hayes appeared in his first movie, "Truck Turner", in the mid-70s. Since
then his name has been featured in the credits of flicks like "Three Tough
Guys", "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time", "Escape From New York",
"I'm Gonna Git You Sucka", "Robin Hood: Men In Tights", "Once Upon A Time
We Were Coloured" and "Flipper". He has also starred in the television
programmes "The Rockford Files", "Miami Vice" and "The A-Team". And he has
likewise made a bunch of tele-movies. All this before some show called
"South Park" came along.
Now, some three decades on, Hayes is The Renaissance Man. Isaac hosts a
top-rating show on New York's Kiss FM (playing classic soul and R&B) and is
looking to release a comeback album with guests from the hip-hop world.
Hayes is being embraced by a young generation for his role as Chef in the
popular cartoon television show "South Park". The series has even spawned a
multi-platinum spin-off album, "Chef Aid: The South Park Album", with a
handful of cuts by Chef himself (among them the cute "Chocolate Salty
Balls"). With the rise of sample-based production, Hayes' work continues to
be used as a primary source. His tunes have been sampled by acts as diverse
as Bomb The Bass, Massive Attack and Jay-Z. The Wu-Tang Clan's RZA has said
that his "Bobby Digital" album was directly inspired by "Shaft". (RZA even
asked Hayes to appear in US advertisements for it.) And, naturally enough,
there are few contemporary male neo-soul artists (D'Angelo, Maxwell) who
don't cite Isaac as an influence. Hayes may have found no love during the
disco era, but his work is held in high esteem by many of today's house and
techno music innovators, who, like Hayes, care little for pop's standard
formulae.
There are all these rumours that you are giving up Chef and you're leaving
South Park. Is there any substance to these?
"No, the thing is I don't know about it. Everything's fine. The thing is I
just signed a new contract not too long ago, so, you know, everything's
going great with that."
South Park has obviously introduced Isaac Hayes to a whole new generation.
"Definitely, a whole new generation, and so that just adds on to what I
already have and it's given me a lot of longevity."
Does it feel like three decades?
"Yeah, because '69 is when I got up on this sort of thing. Then that's as
an artist -- 30 years. But I was a producer, a writer and stuff before
that."
It's been a good life.
"Yes, it has sometimes got a bit rocky along the way, but that's what life
will throw us."
The album that really put you on the international map was "Shaft".
"Yeah, it did."
Now there is talk of them remaking the film. How do you feel about that?
"Well, you know, I don't mind. They finally settled on Samuel Jackson to
play Shaft. I interviewed Richard [Roundtree, the film's star] a little
while ago and said, I just do my thing -- what I'm doing, I go play my golf
and I'm not going to worry about it, which is the right attitude.
John Singleton is directing. People ask me, What do you think? Are you
going to do the music? I don't know. John is a cagey kind of a guy -- he
plays with his cards close to his chest. So, you know, I'm not losing sleep
over it. They know how to find me. So if they want me to be involved in it,
and if I'm happy with the arrangements and conditions, I'll do it. If not,
I'll pass. Because one thing about it is, musically, I was the originator
for that. And I've had some great wins over the years from that, so they
can't take that away. I just hope that they have a good script and the
direction is great.'
So many urban soundtracks today are just compilations of tracks -- they're
marketing tools for the movie.
"You know, that's what pisses me off! They have nothing to do with the
movie -- not a damn thing to do with the movie. They just stick 'em in the
end of the movie over the credits and all this kind of stuff, and then they
say, We've got a soundtrack. When we did music for movies, we wrote themes
or songs to fit the scenes in a movie and that keeps you close in with
that. But now it's commerciality, Hollywood, record companies -- they wanna
sell records and they wanna promote movies that way. I don't agree with it.
But that's the way the business is run."
Do you ever think there will ever be a return to the more credible urban
soundtrack?
'I don't know -- only if a musical person could get involved in it and keep
his artistic ethics in it and do it, because other people, they don't get
it!"
What do you remember about recording "Shaft"? Were you conscious that you
had a hit on your hands?
"No, I had no idea. Since it was my first time with that -- I had no
experience with scoring movies -- I just wanted to do something that the
producer and the director were satisfied with. Artistically, of course, I
liked the grooves that were created and how it felt to me. And me and my
musicians, we had fun doing it. But I didn't think about it after we had
finished the movie. I didn't think about the soundtrack and what the
potential was."
Do you have a favourite album or phase?
"Yeah, I'm torn between the 60s and the 70s, because the 60s was a time of
growth, of learning, and of development for me as a person, as a producer,
as a writer, and as an arranger. And the 70s was a time to display all that
-- and that's when, as an individual performer, it was a time of great
success."
You're recording a new album. How is that going?
"I don't talk about it much because I feel a little guilty. I'm not putting
in the time that I would like to because of the radio job that I have in
New York City -- it's a morning show from 6 til 10. It's a drain... I'm at
my best when I have total freedom. When I go out and gig, the performance
gives me the edge, you play a tune maybe slightly differently each night...
So when you go to the studio you're fired up; you're ready; you want to
create something; your creative juices are flowing... When I do a project
it has to take a form -- it takes a shape, so I can see where it's going
and that will inspire the title of the album."
You released a couple of CDs about four years ago on Virgin which many felt
represented your best work for some years.
"I put out a double-CD set. One was instrumental and one was vocal. The
instrumental one was called "Raw And Refined" and the vocal was called
"Branded". I did some tunes... One tune I feel was incredible was a remake
of Sting's "Fragile", because it addressed issues that are still around. I
had fun with it. I put an Isaac Hayes arrangement on it. It's an
expression. And that's what I like to do for for the listeners -- I like to
make them feel something; I like to take them on a trip. And that's what I
did with "Fragile". And then there's a love song I did called "Let Me Love
You". Now, I'm not comfortable doing that in-your-face stuff about
seduction. If I did it through Chef, yeah, I could do that. But I wasn't
even graphic with a lot of that. "Chocolate Salty Balls", you know, it's a
fun thing. It could be food or it could be me. It's not personalised. But
this tune I based on metaphors as to what I wanted to do to the object of
my affection or my passion or my lust. Instead of body parts I used major
landscape things... The listener got the idea of what I was talking about.
So those two songs I think were my favourites on the "Branded" album.
Today sampling is a common practice in urban music and your work has been
used extensively. How do you feel about that? Do you have much control over
it?
'Yeah, I do. They have to get permission now. That's to James Brown. He
lobbied long enough. We can say yes and no. [For me] it depends on the
nature of the song that they've done. If it's gangsta rap or some of that
kind of shit, I'm not thrilled about letting them have permission to do it
- if it promotes violence and stuff like that. But otherwise I let them
have it. I have grown to accept the fact that hip-hop is a culture and it
was born out of the need for expression about experience and it's selling
very much. So I don't fight 'em.... What [sampling] did is it gave rise to
the resurgence of those classic soul artists who they sampled and if, for
me, you couple that with "South Park", then I'm back on the block. So much
so that with my being on the radio now and having been sampled so much, the
producers of hip-hop, they recognise who I am. 'Cause I guess they had
rummaged through mom and dad's closet and found all that stuff [of mine]...
I have the advantage that I can work with any hip-hop artist I want and
they've made me aware of the fact that they would love to work with me. I
mean, from Whitney Houston to Wyclef to Lauryn Hill to Maxwell to D'Angelo
to Joe to Chico DeBarge to Mary J Blige to Kelly Price to Faith Evans --
you know, all of them. So I'm producing this new album in three phases. The
first is to do the remakes that I wanna do, then the original stuff that I
wanna write, and then collaborate with some people in the hip-hop culture.
So that's what I'll do. And then I'll sit back and review everything and
make choices about what goes onto it. "
These days you are recognised for pre-empting the disco explosion. And
disco has given rise to newer dance styles, like house and techno, which
are likewise forms created by African-American innovators. Are you aware of
these?
'Yes, I had a lot to do with the origin of house music. I'll tell you.
Remember a tune that was big called "Love Can't Turn Around"? See, that
started house music - [Chi-towner Farley "Jackmaster" Funk] got it from my
tune on "Chocolate Chip" -- "I Can't Turn Around". I didn't even try to
nail these guys when they did it [laughs deeply]. But now I'm ready to
collect my dividend!"
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