Isaac Hayes - Shaft

Released - July 1971

Genre - Funk

Producer - Isaac Hayes

Selected Personnel - Isaac Hayes (Vocals/Keyboards); Lester Snell (Keyboards); James Alexander (Bass); Charles Pitts (Guitar); Michael Toles (Guitar); Willie Hall (Drums); Gary Jones (Conga Drums); Richard Davis (Trumpet); John Fonville (Flute)

Standout Track - Theme From Shaft

I talked briefly on my recent review of Funkadelic's Maggot Brain about my slowly dawning interest in funk music, which was a sort of nascent curiosity for many years that I finally got round to indulging more recently. As it turns out, funk is a genre that's quickly captured my imagination more than most, largely due to its enormous sense of cartoonish fun and the frequent sense of genuine deranged lunacy that shines through a lot of it (I've been focusing most of my attention on Parliament-Funkadelic, which manages, despite all the prog I've listened to over the years, to be perhaps the maddest music I've ever had the pleasure of listening to). Like I said on that earlier review, most of my attempts to dip my toes into unfamiliar genres lead me to end up fairly unmoved and to scurry back to the familiar territory of rock, prog, pop and folk where I know I'm comfortable. The last couple of months, however, have seen my interest in the genre really develop and I've been doing my best to become more familiar with some of its major players. It wasn't long, then, before I ended up giving Isaac Hayes' iconic soundtrack to the MGM blaxploitation film Shaft a listen - a huge, sprawling album that plays as much with soul music traditions as with out-and-out funk, it's nonetheless a staple of the genre whose title track has gone down in musical history and that demonstrates a huge range of musical knowledge and capability on the part of Hayes himself. Its inclusion on this list was uncertain for a while, in that my immediate response to the record was that it was overlong and contained a lot of fairly tedious instrumental filler material, which is still true. But the strength of its better tracks continued to hook me back in and to develop a genuine affection for it even in its slower and more drawn-out moments, and it's also far too iconic to not warrant a tip of the hat on this blog.

Through the 1960s, Isaac Hayes had been one of the chief songwriters (along with his songwriting partner Dave Porter) and producers for Stax Records, one of the major labels for soul music at the time along with Motown and Atlantic Records. Stax had achieved success through the decade via artists like Booker T. & The M.G's and most notably the music of legendary soul singer Otis Redding. Redding's tragic death in 1967 left a gap to be filled in Stax's output, and Hayes was soon able to prove himself as a truly great musician in his own right as well as simply a staff songwriter and producer. With his unforgettably smooth bass vocals (perhaps now best-known for being the voice of Chef in South Park), Hayes set about in the late 60s trying to transform soul into something new. Whereas previously it had existed in the three-minute love songs of Redding or Aretha Franklin, on his 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul Hayes transformed soul music into something far grander and more excessive with its extended ten-minute jams and slow, meandering musical explorations. In the wake of this, Hayes was perhaps one of the most forward-thinking and progressive soul musicians of the era, and not long after he was propositioned to write the soundtrack for what would become easily the best-known and most legendary blaxploitation film ever, Gordon Parks and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Shaft, the story of a black private detective attempting to track down a mobster's daughter.

I've not seen the film itself, and undoubtedly much of Hayes' soundtrack is clearly tooled to work as incidental music rather than to really shine as a piece of music in its own right. Some of those incidental tracks work better than others - "Early Sunday Morning" has a kind of slow, lazy sexiness to it that really works, while something like "Walk From Regio's" or the anodyne "Ellie's Love Theme" are far more forgettable, throwaway things that no doubt work perfectly well establishing a mood on film but do little to excite on a record. Hayes is careful to approach the soundtrack not as a showcase for his own talent, but to structure it carefully to best suit the needs of the film. So, while he contributed keyboards and organ and vocals (on only three tracks, sadly, given the amazing appeal of his unique voice), his own musical contributions are rarely the principle focus, with most of the heavy lifting either being done by the Bar-Kays, an R&B band on the Stax label, or by the funky string and horn arrangements, orchestrated by Hayes himself and Johnny Allen. The mood of the album veers from the slow, down-tempo love themes of "Early Sunday Morning" or "A Friend's Place" more redolent of Hayes' ealier soul music, and more upbeat funk numbers like "Be Yourself" or the behemoth of "Do Your Thing." Of course, the standout track by far is the legendary "Theme From Shaft," a song that anticipates all the staples of disco music long before it became a true phenomenon in itself. With its choppy wah-wah guitar and trembling cymbals, all underpinning the flourishes of the horn section, it's an immediately unforgettable classic that forges the sound of Philly Soul and dozens of other derivative movements, while Hayes' eventual vocal entry and call-and-response interaction with the backing singers ("Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks?" "Shaft!" "You're damn right.") is joyfully kitsch and brash.

"Be Yourself" is another great track, with its happy-go-lucky bouncy horn melody and propulsive rhythm picking up the pace from the surrounding more down-tempo numbers. "Soulsville" stands out too for being another of the three tracks on the record to feature vocals, but in truth it's not much more than a simple soul ballad telling the story of life in the ghetto, but the horn arrangements and Hayes' vocals sell it. After "Soulsville" there's another slight dip into forgettable incidental music, but it's pulled back from the brink by the presence of the mighty "Do Your Thing." Technically the third and final vocal song on the album, although the vast majority of its running time is taken up with a fast, sprawling funk jam by the Bar-Kays. Hayes kicks things off with the slow, ominous vocal melody before handing things over to the band, who manage to sustain the full twenty-minute piece without ever dropping off into tedious meandering. Guitarists Charles Pitts and Michael Toles, who, other than the classic wah-wah riff on the title track, don't get to do all that much on this record, really let themselves go on "Do Your Thing" with some torrid solos before a choral, chanted vocal part comes back in near the end and slowly winds the thing down to a close. A brief reprise of the main theme wraps things up in the form of "The End Theme," and the curtain closes on this uneven but ultimately remarkable album.

The Shaft soundtrack did great business, becoming Stax's best-selling record of all time, while "Theme From Shaft" won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Hayes' role as a legendary figure in soul and funk music was assured, and he would go on to capitalise on it with further iconic albums like 1971's Black Moses. For me, I can't get away from the fact that Shaft, due to its cinematic intentions, is frustratingly uneven and features too much by-the-numbers filler to really work as an album in its own right. That's perhaps an unfair complaint to make of a soundtrack album in that it was never conceived to work as an album in its own right, but it does keep me from loving it wholeheartedly. Still, when it's on form it's unforgettable, most notably on the title theme and on "Do Your Thing," and a number of the more characterful instrumental numbers really do a great job of creating and sustaining a mood as well. Hayes ably demonstrates his talent as a composer and arranger, crafting a musical soundscape that runs the gamut of a whole range of moods and musical styles and pulls them all off magnificently. If the album release had chosen to omit some of the more tedious tracks that were more obviously incidental bits of filler and to make a shorter album of just the more standout, attention-grabbing tracks then it could be a truly great collection of brilliant soul and funk tunes, but as it is it's just shy of being genuinely fantastic.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Isaac Hayes.

1. Theme From Shaft

2. Bumpy's Lament

3. Walk From Regio's

4. Ellie's Love Theme

5. Shaft's Cab Ride

6. Cafe Regio's

7. Early Sunday Morning

8. Be Yourself

9. A Friend's Place

10. Soulsville

11. No Name Bar

12. Bumpy's Blues

13. Shaft Strikes Again

14. Do Your Thing

15. The End Theme