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Jul 21, 2009 Web Exclusive By Pasquale Iannone

If audiences in 1969 were used to LPs built around 3-minute hit singles, the musical landscape of 2009 is one of dwindling record sales and endlessly shuffling MP3 players. Four decades have passed since its original release, but Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul remains resolutely sui generis. Its four tracks—the longest of which reaches well over 18 minutes—makes for a radical, revolutionary masterpiece.

Having garnered acclaim as producer, writer and session musician at Stax Records for several years previously, Hayes made his debut with 1967’s Presenting Isaac Hayes, an album which music historian Peter Guralnick describes as "a casual one-take affair, done in jazz trio format…after a long night of drinking in the studio." Despite the album’s minimal success, Hayes was allowed to record a follow-up. It was to be only one of 27 albums Stax released contemporaneously in 1969 at an international sales convention. "Apart from its size" notes Guralnick in Sweet Soul Music, "what made the release unique was an album that no-one was touting, by an artist that no-one had previously recognised (at least not as an artist)."

Digitally remastered and reissued with two bonus cuts, this edition of Hot Buttered Soul features an appreciation by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James. "It is one of those start-to-finish CLASSICS," he gushes. "EVERYTHING is here: soul, rock, sweeping strings, blasting horns, full orchestral arrangements." It’s hard to disagree.

The album opens with a cover of Bacharach/David’s "Walk On By," but the word "cover’"does little justice to what is a quite extraordinary, slow-burn re-imagining of the song, stretched out to 12 minutes. 1969 was the year of The Temptations’ Cloud Nine and Hayes’ "Walk On By" features similarly frazzled, psychedelic lead guitar by Harold Beane. The following track, the throbbing funk of "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" is Hayes’ own composition, its mammoth title denoting, according to collaborator Mervell Thomas, "the propensity to make a whole big deal out of using big words way too often." "One Woman," the album’s shortest piece, is far more of a traditional Memphis soul ballad and was later recorded by Al Green. Little can prepare the listener for the album’s climax, an 18-and-a-half minute cover of Jimmy Webb’s "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." Hayes had performed the song live many times. He would hold down a single organ chord and improvise a sensuous monologue over the top. On the album version, he delivers an entrancing 8-minutes of slow, sensitive exposition before launching into the song itself. "I'm talkin’ about the power of love now," he begins. "I’m gonna tell you what love can do."

Hot Buttered Soul sits comfortably alongside Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On, Aretha Franklin’s I’ve Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life as an undisputed milestone of soul: sublime, pivotal and hugely influential.

Author rating: 9/10