Isaac Hayes "Hot Buttered Soul" LP MFSL original master recording still sealed

$

58

Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (8/ 20/1942 – 8/10/2008) was a songwriter, musician, singer, and occasionally an actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served 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. It was also honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by the RIAA as one of the Songs of the Century.

During the late 1960s, Isaac Hayes also began recording music and he had several successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971). In addition to his work in popular music, he worked as a composer of musical scores for motion pictures.

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

The album almost never came to be. 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 readily agreed.

The album begins with a cover of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David classic, "Walk On By". Second was "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic", an uptempo funk song with wah-wah guitar and rolling pianos. "One Woman", at just over five minutes the shortest track on the album, focuses on the pangs of infidelity. An extended reinterpretation of Jimmy Webb's country music composition "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" closes the album. After an eight-minute spoken introduction, the song slowly builds to a climax of horns, strings, organs and vocals. (On most commonly heard versions of this song, there is an edit before the lyric "when he reached the age of maturity.." during the spoken intro – early vinyl pressings of the album do not feature this edit, and reveal a brief section that includes a technical error, where the sustained organ note briefly drops out.)
The album was notable for its use of innovative Bell/Hayes production and Terry Manning engineering techniques, and has deeply influenced a great deal of subsequent soul, hip hop and Motown music. Both "Walk on By" and "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" have been sampled extensively, the former showing up on tracks by the likes of Compton's Most Wanted, 3rd Bass, MF DOOM, Wu-Tang Clan, Hooverphonic and Notorious B.I.G., while the latter song was sampled by Public Enemy for "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos".

"Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" also appears on the soundtrack to the film Zodiac, while "Walk On By" appears along with Hayes' version of "The Look Of Love" on the soundtrack to the film Dead Presidents.

Much of the final production was done as part of the package of products brought to Detroit by producer Don Davis to expedite the production process. The project strings and horns were recorded at United Sound Studios by engineer Ed Wolfrum with vocals and final mix at Terra-Shirma by engineer Russ Terrana. The pre-delay reverberation technique, recorded in part by Manning on the tracking session, had been used at Artie Fields productions in Detroit in late 1950s, and at Columbia Records; it was also used by Wolfrum and others for numerous productions and commercials previous and after the release of this project including the Marvin Gaye What's Going On project, with orchestration also recorded at United. Russ Terrana went on to the engineering staff of Motown Records and was responsible recording and mixing of many hits on that label.

Side one
"Walk On By" (Burt Bacharach, Hal David) – 12:03
"Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (Isaac Hayes, Alvertis Isbell) – 9:38
Side two
"One Woman" (Charles Chalmers, Sandra Rhodes) – 5:10
"By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (Jimmy Webb) – 18:42 

This is a limited edition (no. 01354) sealed copy of the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs reissue.  It was mastered with the Gain 2 Ultra Analog System by Krieg Wunderlich.