Seminal late-60s soul

After several years as a staff arranger, producer, writer and instrumentalist for Stax Records, Hayes cut his 1967 solo debut, Presenting Isaac Hayes, sketching an album template that was rendered in ink on this 1969 follow-up. Where the debut riffed on tunes by Willie Dixon and Count Basie, this sophomore effort offers full-length dissertations. With only four tracks, but a running time of over 45-minutes, Hayes stretched covers of Bacharach and David’s “Walk On By” and Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” to epic length. The single versions, added here as bonus tracks, still clock in at 4:33 and 6:57, respectively, even when edited to their radio essentials.

Hayes didn’t just lengthen these songs by adding musical jams and verbal recitations; he refashioned them completely into soul music, with thumping drum beats, deep bass, and wailing psychedelic guitars. His deeply pained vocal on “Walk On By” is as much sung as it is begged, and an 8-minute rap blossoms brilliantly into an emotional reading of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” These covers didn’t just separate themselves from earlier versions, they separated themselves from everything else then being recorded in soul music.

The album’s new pieces include the heavy soul “Hyperbolicsyllablecseseuedalymistic,” featuring a terrifically funky piano solo, and a standard ballad arrangement of Charles Chalmers’ “One Woman.” Interestingly, Hot Buttered Soul, wasn’t recorded in the famed Stax studio, but at the nearby Ardent complex that regularly hosted overflow Stax work and was the home turf of Big Star. Clearly there was magic in those rooms. This latest reissue includes 24-bit remastering by Bob Fisher and a 12-panel booklet with introductory notes by Jim James, liners by Bill Dahl and a couple of great photos. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]