“I took it down to SOULVILLE”
MELODY MAKER FEBRUARY 13, 1971
ISAAC Hayes is already a giant of black music. Yet three albums ago he was little more than one half for a very fine songwriting team that churned out hits for Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and other Stax acts. Neither Hayes, nor his partner David Porter, looked like potential superstar material. But Ike has made it, and how.
Those three albums – Hot Buttered Soul, The Isaac Hayes Movement and …To Be Continued – have sold millions of copies, topping the American pop, R&B and jazz charts for months on end. Right now, he’s one of the hottest contenders around.
The man himself is something of an enigma, at least to outsiders. His publicity pictures have him looking mean, moody and mysterious, bare-torsoed and hung with stark, symbolic chains, head aesthetically shaven, omnipotent. But when you meet him, he’s charming to a degree.
He approves of his image of inaccessibility, though, and doesn’t deny that he’s known to surround himself with heavies. He doesn’t intend to go the route of so many exploited black artists, and he’s prepared to defend himself in that cause.
His office is phenomenal, the talk of the company. Reclining behind his long desk, he’s surrounded by a good hi-fi, a small colour TV, wild printed walls, fringed carpets and sci-fi lighting, plus a womb-like chair with speakers in the headrest. It’s so freaky that, on my way out,
