Isaac Hayes - Black Moses
Submitted by Jason Gilmore on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 08:52
Artist: Isaac Hayes
Release Date: February 24, 2009 (reissue)
Record Label: Stax Records, Concord Music Group
Producer: Isaac Hayes
In the winter of 1971, fresh off the behemoth that was the soundtrack for Shaft, Stax released an Isaac Hayes double album that pushed him into full blown super-stardom.
What is amazing is how well the album has aged.
The satin, heartfelt remake of “Never Can Say Goodbye” works surprisingly well and was, for a time, a neighbor of the Jackson 5’s more well-known version on the Soul Charts. “(They Long to Be) Close to You” is smooth as hell. Laced with perfectly harmonized female vocals and luxurious string arrangements, it still sounds great cruising down the avenue in a Fleetwood Caddy. “Man’s Temptation” is the brutally frank confessions of a conflicted adulterer, sung with the aching torment of a man who was suffering through his own divorce at the time. Hayes could make seven and nine minute songs that seemed short, that were so brilliant, you could listen to them forever. Never before has desperation sounded so cool as in “Never Gonna Give You Up” or “Ike’s Rap II: Help Me Love.”
Though Hayes had become a songwriter of note (he had, by this point, co-written “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’” for Sam & Dave), he elected to do mostly covers this time out. Though he may have chosen some unusual muses -- Burt Bacharach? Kris Kristofferson? -- he makes each song uniquely his like fellow song re-interpreters Donny Hathaway and Nina Simone.
The Concord Music Group gives the album lush treatment: beautiful liner notes, a fold out CD case that emulates the original LP. The only nitpick is that the album is sequenced wrong, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying this masterpiece.
