Good love (Isaac Hayes) (LP 644 - 647)

Isaac Hayes  Hot Buttered Soul  (CD, Stax, 1969) ***

Isaac Hayes  The Isaac Hayes Movement  (CD, Stax, 1970) ***

Isaac Hayes  Shaft  (CD, Stax, 1971) ****

Isaac Hayes  Black Moses  (CD, Stax, 1971) **** 

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Virgin Megastore (Dubai); Kings Recording (Abu Dhabi); Fives (Leigh-on-sea)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: By The Time I Get To Phoenix

Gear costume: Soulsville (Shaft), No Name Bar (Shaft) - great horns!

Active compensatory factors: Sometimes I just need to hear the extended versions of Something (phew - an epic) or By The Time I Get To Phoenix - yes all 18 plus minutes of it).

Then again - I also sometimes just need to listen to Shaft. The whole album from the opening theme is captivating and fresh, Soulsville is a great song - with Isaac Hayes distinctive vocals, and No Name Bar always gets the juices flowing with that awesome horn arrangement by Hayes.

All that and then Do Your Thing is a nearly 20 minute wig out before The End Theme - just what I love!

The first two albums here follow a similar pattern - four songs over two sides with lengthy workouts on familiar songs - something like Walk On By or I Stand Accused.

Black Moses is the big double album and something of a culmination of the Isaac Hayes method; familiar songs like Never Can Say Goodbye are Isaac-ised so you don't even remember the original (Michael Jackson's) version.

Everything about the album reeks of confidence and coolness. The original album cover was a lavish affair that suited the scope of Black Moses.

Where do they all belong? All done for Isaac Hayes.