Hot Buttered Soul
| Hot Buttered Soul | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Isaac Hayes | ||||
|
Publication |
1969 |
|||
| Label (s) | Stax Records / Universal Music Group | |||
|
Format (s) |
LP, CD (since 1990) |
|||
|
Title (number) |
4th |
|||
|
running time |
45:24 |
|||
|
Al Bell, Marvell Thomas, Allen Jones |
||||
|
||||
Hot Buttered Soul is the second music album by the American singer Isaac Hayes . It was released in 1969 by the music label Stax Records . Hot Buttered Soul is considered to be one of the most important albums in the soul genre . His only four pieces with an average length of over eleven minutes marked the beginning of a clear departure from the single format of soul pieces in the 1960s. Also musically, Hayes anticipated the inclusion of other types of music and the groove orientation of many soul albums in the 1970s.
After being released in CD format in 1990, the album was re-released as a Super Audio Compact Disc in 2004 and a remastered version in 2009 .
background
Isaac Hayes began his career as a songwriter with the soul music publishing record label Stax Records. In 1968 he recorded his debut album Presenting Isaac Hayes . However, this was a commercial failure and ended Hayes' solo career for the time being. Shortly thereafter, however, due to a contractual gap, a large part of the Stax back catalog fell to Atlantic Records . Stax therefore requested new publications from its artists. As a result, Hayes took up Hot Buttered Soul within two weeks, focusing more on his own musical vision .
Music and singing
| Track list | |
|---|---|
|
Musically, Hot Buttered Soul differs significantly from the soul of the 1960s, which was characterized by radio-compatible pop influences from Motown releases, but also from the counterpart of the rough Southern Soul , which was mainly produced by Stax artists. Hayes, on the other hand, used elements from classical music and funk , which he integrated into pieces whose length and musical jam playfulness meant a clear departure from previous soul pieces, which rarely had a playing time of over four minutes. The pieces fall by some very symphonic , but use not only orchestral music and wah-wah - guitars and clearly accented percussion rhythms. From this instrumentation, grooves that last for minutes often develop , which give the music a psychedelic component , also due to the previously rather unusual use of many minor chords.
Much of the music was recorded by the studio band The Bar-Kays . Isaac Hayes sings the pieces in the bass-baritone register, occasionally using spoken word passages, for example the first half of the piece By the Time I Get to Phoenix consists of a monologue by Hayes.
Two of the four pieces are cover versions of previously published songs. Walk on By was composed by Burt Bacharach and recorded for the first time by Dionne Warwick in 1963; the text is by Hal David . In addition to Isaac Hayes, the piece was reinterpreted by Aretha Franklin , Johnny Mathis , The Beach Boys and Seal, among others . By the Time I Get to Phoenix was written by Jimmy Webb . After Johnny Rivers first sang it in 1965, the piece was popularized by Glen Campbell in 1967 .
Reviews
Hot Buttered Soul was received positively almost without exception. The German music magazine Sounds included the work in their list of 50 essential albums of black music . With the release of Hot Buttered Soul , "modern soul" began. The album was "not part of any contemporary music tradition ", it was "rather the artistic redefinition and anticipation of the soul of the seventies".
The online database Allmusic awarded the album five out of five possible points. It was "groundbreaking" and one of the "timeless, characteristic" works of soul and made Hayes a "lifelong icon ". Walk on By is "an epic twelve-minute moment of true perfection", while the other pieces are "not that breathtaking, but undoubtedly impressive".
The US music magazine Rolling Stone rated the album on the occasion of the re-release in 2009 with four out of five possible points. Hot Buttered Soul is still "a benchmark for soul visionaries everywhere". In addition, the album made Isaac Hayes a pop star and sex symbol .
The music critic Robert Christgau , on the other hand, only rated Hot Buttered Soul with a grade of C, corresponding to a 3. The album is "so overrated that it has its own validity".
meaning
Hot Buttered Soul made Isaac Hayes - together with Shaft - "one of the first black superstars of the 1970s". The album prepared "the ground for the famous albums by Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye in the seventies".
In addition to the music, the cover of Hot Buttered Soul gained special significance in the Black Power movement that began in the late 1960s due to its “radical aesthetics” . Isaac Hayes stages himself on it with sunglasses and a gold chain, looking down. Hayes was photographed from above in the close- up. Much of the cover is filled by his bald head , which reflects the light.
Re-use
Hayes regained greater prominence in the late 1980s. This was primarily due to the use of his music in hip-hop instrumentals . Walk on By and Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic are among the pieces by Hayes that are most frequently used as samples . Walk on By was sampled by The Notorious BIG , Tupac Shakur and Pete Rock , among others . Hayes sang a new chorus for use by the Wu-Tang Clan in 2000. The keyboard played by Hayes in the middle section of Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic was mainly sampled in early hardcore and gangsta rap , for example by Public Enemy , NWA and Ice Cube .
In 1995 Hayes made a comeback as a musician. He recorded the album Branded , the last track of which is a twelve-minute reinterpretation of Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic .
Pieces of Hot Buttered Soul have been used in several films and on their soundtracks . Walk on By can be heard in the 1995 film Dead Presidents and Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic in Zodiac from 2007.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nelson George : R&B - The history of black music , translation by Patrick Schnur. orange-press, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3936086044 , page 197
- ↑ Sounds : Black Music , issue 1/2008, page 95
- ↑ allmusic.com: Review of Hot Buttered Soul (accessed January 24, 2010)
- ↑ rollingstone.com: Review of Hot Buttered Soul , August 18, 2009 (accessed January 24, 2010)
- ↑ robertchristgau.com: Christgaus reviews on albums by Isaac Hayes (accessed on 24 January 2010)
- Jump up ↑ George, 194
- ↑ a b Stefan Hoffmann / Karsten Tomnitz: Rare Soul - The who's who of the soul era . Ventil, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3931555984 , page 105
- ↑ the-breaks.com: List of pieces by Hayes used as samples (accessed January 25, 2010)