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. 

Get it on (T Rex) (LP 311)

Various 20 Solid Gold Hits Vol II (Vinyl - Music For Leisure, 1971) ***

Genre: Compilations, but really it is its own genre in New Zealand

Places I remember: Back in 1971 - I think I got this from Woolworths in Three Kings - it was a store next to the new foodmarket; 2019 copy from Hastings second hand record shop for $15. Finding a cleanish copy has been difficult over the last few months, as it was a party album in 1971 and so was manhandled mercilessly. This is the best copy I've been able to find (so it needs a clean, but is otherwise in very good shape). 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Imagine - John Lennon




Gear costume: Meet Me On The Corner - Lindisfarne; Theme From "Shaft" - Isaac Hayes; Day After Day - Badfinger; Good Morning Mr Rock n' Roll - Headband. 

Active compensatory factors: This is the album that really kick started and confirmed my love for John Lennon, the solo artist. 

I'd seen him on The Ed Sullivan Show in the mid sixties, I'd gazed at his photo on the cover of Hey Jude in 1970 and I had loved this song and its affect on me beyond any other song I'd heard up to 1971. 

From here it was buying a copy of the Imagine album and then anything else he'd done.

The pleasure of this compilation was that it contained some other brilliant pop songs (see the 'Gear costume' section above), as well as a couple of good kiwi tracks from Headband and Suzanne (but also a Craig Scott song for balance).

Being a hits compilation and being the early seventies it has some bizarre people on it: for every John Lennon there is a Tom Jones, for every Badfinger and T Rex there is a Dawn and for every Isaac Hayes there is an Al Martino.

Where do they all belong? Remarkably, I didn't buy any other 20 Solid Gold Hits packages like this back in the early seventies - this volume came along at the exact right time - before I thought it was really uncool to own it and just as I needed a compilation that had on it all the songs I was listening to on the radio.

Love, love will tear us apart again (Joy Division)

Songs about break ups have been around since Eve whistled a melancholy little tune as she exited Eden.

Teenagers love to wallow in self pity and I was no exception (even if I didn't have a break up to feel melancholy about) and I'm betting that you weren't either.

Everybody has experienced the pain of unrequited love at some stage, and many have loved and lost.

Songs about such things hit a universal chord (pun intentional). Everybody who wants to tap into the universal gestalt has a song about a break up in them.

Here are my top five break up songs of all time (with five it has to be all killer, no filler):



I've kicked off with a brilliant song from a great break up album, maybe the greatest of all time - Blood On The Tracks.

Bob Dylan's If You See Her, Say Hello is a thoughtful, poignant request of a song that means a painful parting has resulted in a reflective period and then acceptance that she will live forever in his heart. Not only that - she can always visit if she's got the time.

We had a falling out
like lovers often will
and to think of how she left that night
still gives me a chill

And though our separation
it pierced me to the heart
she'll always live inside of me
we've never been apart

Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division) is another extra-ordinary break up song. It's of the raw and bleak type rather than the sappier melancholy school of break up songs - why is the bedroom so cold?

The first verse is remarkable for a pop song and I'm always a sucker for the simple overuse of a conjunction in poetry or prose.

When routine bites hard,
And ambitions are low,
And resentment rides high,
But emotions won't grow,
And we're changing our ways,
Taking different roads.

http://youtu.be/qHYOXyy1ToI (for JD)

One of the greatest ever I'm leaving you songs is Jimmy Webb's By The Time I Get To Phoenix. Doesn't matter which version you listen to as the story and the sentiment behind the song stand up time and time again. The version I've included here is by Glen Campbell but only because nearly 20 minutes of Isaac Hayes is probably too long on the blog but do yourself a favour and have a listen to it on the link if you get a chance. There is nothing to equal it in all of musicdom.



http://youtu.be/9bbdJSW3pvM (for IH)
At number four is the all class representative of the idea that love-stinks-and-I'm never-doing-that-again sub-genre that is I'll Never Fall In Love Again.  The kicker is always in the last verse in this type of song. Hal David's version is:

What do you get when you fall in love?
You only get lies and pain and sorrow
So for at least until tomorrow
I'll never fall in love again

Finally - the fifth song stands up (lies down?) for all those weepy pathetic excuses of songs that just simply feel sorry for themselves. Eric (All By Myself) Carmen is a masterful exponent of this type of break up song.
Boats Against The Current is also a great example of the not quite type of relationship. It hints at the desperate need to stay in a relationship long after it has become clear that each person is in a different boat rowing against the current.

Again the first verse sets the scene and largely sums up the song's intentions:
To say these songs are the tip of the break up iceberg is doing a huge disservice to icebergs but they do represent the key strands within the break up sub genre within the Love Song tradition.

I know it's over
You know it's over
We're just goin' through the motions
But we're sailin' separate oceans worlds apart
And you know it's breakin' my heart

The break up is a topic that never runs out of appeal and song writers will continue to exploit the need we have for them until the sun explodes. 

What do you get when you fall in love? (Isaac Hayes)

I'm back in Al Ain with my horde of CDs from the trip to UK and France.

I've written already about the sad, and increasing, trend for CD stores to wither and die, but I did have success as well as the disappointment of finding favourite stores closed down.

I managed to knock a few titles off my wants list: Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert and Riverside (Virgin Megastore France); Josh T Pearson and the 6 CD Woodstock box set (Fives in Leigh-on-Sea); DJ Shadow (FOPP in London) and Symphony X (HMV in Oxford St) were some of the harder to find things. Other titles that I can't get in Dubai or Abu Dhabi like the latest from Bon Iver, Wild Beasts and Fleet Foxes were also in the haul.

I'm working through the purchases and so far only one dud to report - Billy Cobham's Shabazz. And even then - maybe not a dud. When I put it on Jacky hated it so I whipped it out of the machine to try in the car sometime when she's not around.

I was amazed to find a lot of live archival CDs by bands like Jefferson Airplane on my travels. [Maybe a niche to explore. I know there is a website that just has old convert tapes to download]. One of my favourite all time albums is their 30 Seconds Over Winterland. I found a double live CD by JA at Winterland in 1972 that I've had on repeat for days.

It's not brilliantly recorded but it does shine a light on some neglected back catalogue jems from Long John Silver and Bark. It's great to hear Paul Kantner and Grace Slick soar through songs like When The Earth Moves Again (from Bark). Their voices combine so well! Amazingly Jack Cassidy gets the biggest cheer from the fans!

I'm currently grooving to Black Moses by Isaac Hayes. Another great (under rated) vocalist. The dude could really sing!!