Hot Buttered Soul (studio album) by Isaac Hayes

This record was gifted to me as it had been my mom's when she was a teenager. Being in middle school at the time, she let me have all her old records, and hearing this was highly influential to me personally and musically. Really my first taste of soul outside of Otis Redding. The A side of this record is absolute perfection, in my opinion. Prog-soul with elements of early funk. "I can't sleep at night, but that's all right, the M.D. tells me, my heart's on strike."

The freedom that Hayes was given is evident throughout this whole record and this allows it to be a very individualistic listen. There is a varying degree of success to this freedom with two of the songs being absolutely phenomenal, one of them being pretty good and one which is a bit of a mess. To start with the positives, you have Walk On By and One Woman which are both so full of soul and passion which makes them such fantastic listens. One Woman leads more towards the pure soul side but Walk On By creates something completely different to anything I have heard before. Hayes creates a 12 minute progressive soul song and it works perfectly. The build up on it is fantastic and it does a great job of getting stuck in your head making it the peak of this record. However, the poorer part of this album is that final track which has a very long spell of not doing anything really. There is no instrumentation of any quality or importance for about 9 minutes and Hayes just rambles for that entire time. That whole segment could be cut from the record and it would definitely be improved as all it does it take you out of the album as it is boring and unnecessary. Without it this record could be amazing but those 9 minutes just drag it back down. Overall, a record that has its weaknesses but is definitely worth exploring for the experimentation and to see the high quality soul music present on here.

Great album

Album Rating: 89.00
(356/4)

I like a good Isaac Hayes monologue. But 8:40 of, admittedly smooth Hayes musings on the final track (‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’) is too much even for me. It’s 20% of the album. Without it this could have been my favourite album of all time and it is still right up there.

1.Walk On By. 100
2.Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic 98
3.One Woman. 83
4.By The Time I Get To Phoenix. 75

i dont know how we dont have more progressive soul albums ???!!!\

that or a didnt search enough

hurtin soul by a master

From planetneutral 01/18/2021 12:51

You feel the creative freedom here and, while it's not the most cohesive result, I appreciate the ambition and grooves.

Finest example of the importance of creative freedom. When Stax broke with Atlantic Records in 1968 and lost her entire back catalogue, Hayes was compelled to make a studio album. He wasn't very happy to; his debut album "Presenting Isaac Hayes" failed to chart and Hayes had decided to stay in the background as a songwriter and session musician. When Al Bell, record executive for Stax, persuaded Hayes to record a new album, Hayes demanded total creative freedom. The result: a groundbreaking soul record, consisting of only four tracks that changed the entire future for soul music. Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions" aren't likely to have existed if it weren't for this album.

From Tamthebam 07/28/2018 20:22

A breakthrough Soul/RnB album released in 1969 - Only 4 tracks for a soul album was unheard of, but Mr.Hayes knew what he was doin'. His reworking of these songs especially Walk On By & By The time I Get To Phoenix give both songs a new meaning.

From JulianR 05/20/2018 20:51

It's like prog-soul. Very interesting