Isaac Hayes masterpiece gets ‘small batch’ vinyl treatment
And in Vinyl of the Week, ‘The Who: Live at Shea Stadium 1982’
When Isaac Hayes released “Hot Buttered Soul” in June 1969, not only did it set him on the path to superstardom, but it also crossed the boundaries of soul music in general and helped shape the genre for the next decade to come.
Now, it’s gotten an audiophile pressing from Craft Recordings as part of their stellar “small batch” vinyl series and was released Friday.
Thanks to such groundbreaking tracks as “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic,” plus ambitious renditions of the Burt Bacharach/ Hal David classic “Walk on By” and Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Hot Buttered Soul” has long been considered a landmark title in R&B, one that pushed the limits of soul and influenced countless artists in its wake.
It was Hayes’ sophomore effort and served as a proper introduction to the artist, following his widely overlooked solo debut, “Presenting Isaac Hayes,” which came out the year prior.
Released via Stax Records, “Hot Buttered Soul” proved to be an enormous success, despite its unusual format.
There are only four tracks on the record, split over two sides, beginning with “Walk on By.”
Originally an airy, 3-minute hit for Dionne Warwick in 1963, the song was transformed by Hayes, who slowed it down and stretched it out into a psychedelic, 12-minute rumination on love and loss.
The mood and the pace pickup with“Hyperbolic syllabics es que daly mis tic ,” which was co-written with Stax President Al Bell. A funky and swaggering number, it finds Hayes at his most seductive, closing with a lengthy, climactic jam.
The second side opens with the reflective “One Woman,” written by the married songwriting team of Charles Chalmers and Sandra Rhodes. It’s the shortest track on the album — clocking in at five minutes — and finds Hayes taking the point of view of a man caught in a love triangle, as he considers the two women he loves in his wife and his mistress.
“Hot Buttered Soul” closes out with a 19-minute reworking of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”
Given the framework, Hayes takes his time with the song, offering up an 8-minute-long spoken-word intro before delving into the languid track and making it his own.
Completing the package was a now-iconic cover image, which presented Hayes as the star he was about to become. Shot from above, the photo captures the artist in an introspective moment: his shiny, shaved head in the foreground, followed by his signature gold sunglasses, gold chains and bare chest.
Inside, listeners would find something unlike anything they had heard before.
In addition to spending over a year on the R&B chart, and topping it for 10 weeks, the LP peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, sold over a million copies, and even crossed over onto the jazz charts.
Initially, Stax didn’t plan to release any singles around the album, but once it was clear “Hot Buttered Soul” was a cultural phenomenon, the label issued edited-down versions of “Walk on By” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” as a double A-side.
Like all small batch titles, “Hot Buttered Soul” was handpicked from Craft’s extensive catalog, just in time for its 55th anniversary.
It’s been mastered from its original tapes by Bernie Grundman and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI with Neotech’s VR900 compound, using a one-step lacquer process, as opposed to the standard three-step process.
This technique allows for the utmost level of musical detail, clarity and dynamics while reducing the amount of surface noise on the record.
The limited nature of these pressings guarantees that each record is a true representation of the original lacquer and is as close as the listener can get to the original recording.
The “Hot Buttered Soul” pressing is limited to 3,000 copies worldwide. Each copy is individually numbered and encased in a foilstamped, linen-wrapped slipcase featuring an acrylic inset of the original artwork.
The vinyl disc is extractable through a unique, frictionless ribbon pull tab and housed in a reproduction of the album’s original tip-on jacket from Stax Records and protected by an archival-quality, anti-static, nonscratching inner sleeve.
New in-depth liner notes by veteran music writer and journalist A. Scott Galloway complete the package.
“Hot Buttered Soul” has only grown in significance over the five and a half decades since its release.
Along the way, countless others have found inspiration, including a younger generation of hip-hop acts.
Hayes’ interpretation of “Walk on By,” for instance, has been sampled 118 times by artists such as The Notorious B.I.G., Beyoncé, 2Pac and Alicia Keys.
Meanwhile ,“Hyperbolic syllabics es que daly mis tic” appeared famously in Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” and DJ Quik’s “Born and Raised in Compton,” as well as in classic tracks by Ice Cube, N.W.A, and Tha Dogg Pound.
Hayes would go on to find even greater success in the 1970s, releasing such best-selling titles as “The Isaac Hayes Movement” at the dawn of the decade, followed by the Grammy-winning “Black Moses” and “Shaft” soundtrack, both released in 1971.
The groundbreaking “Shaft” score also earned him an Academy Award, making him the first Black recipient of an Oscar in a nonacting category.
Throughout the rest of his life, he maintained an active career as a recording artist and actor. He was rediscovered by a younger generation as part of the original cast of “South Park,” providing the voice of Chef for the first six seasons of the groundbreaking animated series.
The small batch pressing of “Hot Buttered Soul” can be found exclusively at CraftRecordings.com and AcousticSounds.com.
Vinyl of the Week
Keep an eye on this spot as each week we’ll be looking at new or soon-to-be-released vinyl from a variety of artists. It might be a repressing of a landmark recording, special edition or new collection from a legendary act.
This week, it’s the first time for an official audio recording of a pivotal show from The Who’s “farewell” tour.
• “The Who: Live at Shea Stadium 1982”
At the time The Who announced their 1982 tour
would be their final one, there were a lot of mixed emotions surrounding it.
Many considered the legendary outfit at the end of their road, a shell of themselves since the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978. Others didn’t mind the marked change in the band’s sound with replacement stickman Kenney Jones on the albums “Face Dances” and “It’s Hard” and looked forward to what the ’80s held in store.
Guitarist Pete Townshend, however, was sick of being on the road and thought The Who should follow in the footsteps of The Beatles and become a studio band. Hence, the tour to support “It’s Hard” would double as a farewell run.
Oddly enough, the tour was essentially confined to North America, with just two warm-up dates in England.
Over the years, there have been a few video and audio souvenirs released from the trek, notably “The Who Rocks America,” broadcast with great fanfare on pay-per-view in conjunction with the final date in Toronto on Dec. 17, 1982.
There was also “Who’s Last,” a 1984 audio-only release of the last U.S. concert three days prior on Dec. 14 from Cleveland.
Mercury Studios has released the first official audio companion of “Live at Shea Stadium 1982,” taken from the second of a twonight stand at New York’s iconic ballpark on Oct. 13, 1982, on both triple vinyl and a double compact disc set.
Previously released on DVD and Blu-ray in June 2015, the show saw the band led by Townshend, frontman Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle and Jones deliver both classic tracks and rarely performed songs.
“Pinball Wizard,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “My Generation,” “Who Are You,” “I Can’t Explain,” and many more are all on deck, as well as a handful of tracks from “It’s Hard” like “Eminence Front,” “Dangerous,” “Cry If You Want” and the title track.
There’s even a nod to The Beatles legendary shows there in 1965 and 1966 with a cover of “I Saw Here Standing There,” the only time The Who would perform the song.
The Who’s 1982 North American tour was their last to feature Jones on drums and, despite many protests to the contrary along the way, the band did tour again in 1989 under the banner “The Kids Are Alright.”
These days, any artist who embarks on a “farewell tour” is openly ridiculed, and one of the reasons is because of what The Who since 1982, returning multiple times to the road.
That doesn’t negate the fact that there were some brilliant shows along the way, including this one.
Look for The Who “Live at Shea Stadium 1982” online and from all respectable retailers who carry vinyl.