Don’t be afraid – summer isn’t over yet: the Ministry is not due to re-open for service until Monday 8 September.
However, something happened at work yesterday that made me wanna post: nobody knew who Isaac Hayes was.
I AM soul, man.
Three people – all graduates, all professionals, all in their mid-30s or older: none of them knew the man, recognised any of the song titles I rattled off, or showed any hint of awareness about Hayes’ life and achievements.
There’s not necessarily any reason why they should, of course, but it never ceases to amaze me that most people actually don’t give two fucks about the things that matter to me.
So I’m going to do what little I can and spread the word in my own small way.
In the space of five days earlier this month, two of the most important people in the history of soul music died; Isaac Hayes and Jerry Wexler.
Isaac Hayes began his professional music career behind the scenes at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee in 1964. His first task? To sit in for the exam-bound Booker T. Jones and arrange the keyboards at the session that yielded Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness. Seriously – fuck me: talk about a calling card… He co-wrote (among many others) the Minister’s beloved Soul Man, Hold On I’m Coming and B-A-B-Y. He won perhaps the only genuinely deserved Academy Award for Original Song for The Theme From Shaft. In addition to his composition genius, he was also perhaps pop music’s best interpreter of Burt Bacharach’s songs. He is the only man who could allow himself to be known as Black Moses without inviting opprobrium – the exuberantly Afro’d Jesse Jackson’s unveiling of Hayes’s shaven head at the 1972 Wattstax concert is as funny as it is symbolic.
Stax Records in the Sixties had a (subsequently notorious) distribution deal with Atlantic Records, one of whose co-owners was Jerry Wexler. As a Billboard journalist, Wexler coined the phrase “Rhythm and Blues”. One of his early roles in the music industry itself was to provide backing vocals on Big Joe Turner’s original version of Shake, Rattle & Roll; he went on to supervise the production of Ray Charles’ session that produced I Got A Woman; he was asked to deliver a eulogy at Otis Redding’s funeral; he created Dusty In Memphis. As if that wasn’t enough, Jerry Wexler made Aretha Franklin. (And I don’t mean that in a smutty way – I mean, he rescued her from recording show tunes at Columbia Records and turned her into the gospel-soul legend she is.)
I can’t tell Hayes’s or Wexler’s story as well as other people can, but I’d love people to understand better these men’s achievements and significance, so here is your reading list. Please come back for the new term properly prepared: there will be a test…
Red Kelly’s account of Wexler’s life and times in general
Red Kelly’s account of Wexler’s part in the rise of the Queen of Soul
Richard Williams’ Guardian obituary of Wexler
Adam Sweeting’s Guardian obituary of Hayes
Fox News’ disturbing account of Hayes’ final years with Scientology
Andria Lisle’s Guardian article about Hayes, Memphis, Stax and race
…and a highly enjoyable YouTube compilation of some of Hayes’ finest moments
To quote Red Kelly quoting Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr:
“If you feel like you wanna sing, ’cause singing is your thing – sing on.”
Sing on…