Archive Review: Isaac Hayes' Black Moses (1971/2009)

By the time of his death last year, more people were familiar with Isaac Hayes’ portrayal of the lusty school chef on Comedy Central’s South Park TV show than were with his enormous body of music. It’s a shame, of course, one only partially redeemed by the current drive by the revived Stax Records and the Concord Music Group to revamp the soul giant’s back catalog for the new millennia.

Isaac Hayes, for those that need smartened up, was more than “Chef,” more than the dusky-voiced badass that sang the theme song from the movie Shaft. Hired as the keyboardist of the Stax Records’ house band in 1964, Hayes performed behind folks like Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and blues great Albert King. Hayes would later form a songwriting partnership with David Porter. Together, the two wrote over 200 songs, including hits for artists like Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and Johnny Taylor, among many others.

Hayes launched his own solo career in 1967 with Presenting Isaac Hayes, but it would be the release, two years later, of Hot Buttered Soul that would provide his commercial breakthrough. Comprised of four lengthy songs, three of them inspired, reinvented cover tunes, the album defined the progressive soul movement. Hayes would take another great commercial and creative step forward in 1971 with the release of his score for the hit movie Shaft, with its ubiquitous theme song, as well as with the ambitious, groundbreaking Black Moses double-album.

One cannot underestimate the influence of Black Moses on the direction of soul music during the ‘70s. With fourteen songs sprawled across two discs, Black Moses provided four sides of effervescent funk, passionate soul, and old-school rhythm & blues. Hayes created Superfly cool a year before Curtis Mayfield; his lusty spoken-word interludes would inform hip-hop/rap music a decade later; and his lush, rhythmic orchestration would foreshadow disco’s rise in popularity during the late ‘70s (*shudder*).    

It was Hayes’ reinvention of soul music, his penchant for virtuoso instrumentation, his songwriting skills, and his ability to take another writer’s song by the throat and make that sucker his bitch that made Black Moses such an important effort. Forget about Barry White or Al Green, Hayes’ cover of “Never Can Say Goodbye” is sheer breathless seduction. Displaying the full breadth of Hayes’ vocal abilities, and backed with on-point harmony vocals and a lush soundtrack, the song’s romantic overtures take on an entirely different vibe here.

Hayes takes Mayfield’s “Man’s Temptation” and turns it inside-out, his desperate vocals often accompanied by a lone drumbeat or shots of keyboard before soaring into passionate washes of backing harmonies and subdued instrumentation. With “Going In Circles,” Hayes layers sensuous harmony vocals, shocks of blasting horns, and jagged washes of funky guitar, his own soulful vocals darting in-and-out of the mix for max effect.

The original “Good Love” comes out of the gate with some irreverent laughter and a tongue-in-cheek spoken intro before jumping into a funky romp with squalls of wiry guitarwork and fleet-footed rhythms. Tackling accomplished country songwriter Kris Kristofferson, Haye’s builds upon other versions of “For the Good Times” with a wonderfully sublime vocal performance, sparse instrumentation, and understated moxie.

Black Moses would prove to be an enormous success, hitting #1 on the R&B chart, #2 on the jazz chart, and rising to #10 on the pop chart while yielding a Top Thirty hit single with “Never Can Say Goodbye.” The album would win Hayes a Grammy™ Award and capped a dominating year for the veteran soul man – Hayes’ soundtrack for Shaft would top all three album charts, win three Grammy™ Awards, and earn Hayes the first Oscar won by an African-American composer. More importantly, Black Moses would provide a creative and evolutionary shift that would have a profound effect on soul and jazz music for a generation to follow.

By the way, the über-cool fold-out cover showing Hayes in full soul-savior glory that worked so well as a 12” LP is mostly just a bother on a 5” cardboard CD cover; with the two discs crammed into tight pockets you have to be careful not to tear when you take ‘em out. Sure, it’s groovy and all that, but couldn’t we have had form and functionality? Jus’ sayin’... (Stax Records, reissued 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine