September 23: Isaac Hayes released Hot Buttered Soul in 1969
This is one of my favorite soul albums ( I should do a post with a top 20 list…). It defines a new kind of soul at the end of the 60s into the 70s. It showed the way soul music would be heading in the next decade. This is intense soul, very skilled both vocally and musically.
Hot Buttered Soul is Isaac Hayes’ second studio album. Released September 23, 1969, it is a landmark in soul music.
Isaac Hayes – Walk on by (short TV-friendly version, it’s over 12 minutes(!) on the album):
Hayes’ solo debut, Presenting Isaac Hayes, had been a poor seller for Stax Records, and Hayes was about to return to his behind-the-scenes role as a producer and songwriter at the venerable soul label when it suddenly lost its complete back catalog after splitting with Atlantic Records in May 1968. Stax executive Al Bell decided to release a new, almost instant, back catalog of 27 albums and 30 singles at once, ordered all of Stax’s artists to record new material, and encouraged some of Stax’s prominent creative staff, including Hayes and Steve Cropper, to record solo albums.
Burned by the retail flop of Presenting Isaac Hayes, Hayes told Bell that he would not cut a follow-up unless he was granted complete creative control. Since Bell had encouraged Hayes to record Presenting… in the first place, he agreed.
Isaac Hayes really seized the opportunity and made one seminal soul album, an ambitiously excessive masterpiece!
Isaac Hayes – Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic (live, 1996):
Interview with Isaac Hayes about the origins of Stax records and Hot Buttered Soul:
Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul on Spotify:
– Hallgeir & Egil