Isaac Hayes - Black Moses

Released - November 1971

Genre - Soul

Producer - Isaac Hayes

Selected Personnel - Isaac Hayes (Vocals/Piano/Organ/Keyboards); Ronald Hudson (Bass); Michael Toles (Guitar); James Alexander (Bass); Willie Hall (Drums); Gary Jones (Percussion); Lester Snell (Electric Piano); Charles Pitts (Guitar); Sidney Kirk (Piano); Johnny Allen (Arrangements)

Standout Track - Ike's Rap II/Help Me Love

Post-Shaft, it seems that restraint was the last thing on Isaac Hayes' mind. And, in fairness, why shouldn't it be? He'd just composed and produced the best-selling album on the Stax label (a title it still holds to this day), and the album's iconic title track had become a number one single. In the wake of such success, Hayes had no reason at all to reign himself in and so it is that within just a few months of the release of the Shaft soundtrack he unleashed another vast, sprawling double album with over ninety minutes' worth of material, including several extended ten minute covers of simple soul ballads from the sixties. First things first - Black Moses, like Shaft before it, is another example of the ever-popular trope of double albums falling victim to their own lack of restraint and ending up far longer than the material actually justifies. Some of the songs do little to really excite the listener, while other songs that are perfectly good do outstay their welcome by extending a very simple song to an epic jam. The other complaint to make of Black Moses is that it's a curiously backwards step by Hayes - having just proven his own compositional skills vastly on Shaft, it seems strange that he would then take a backwards step into making another album consisting chiefly of covers of older songs. Similarly, while Shaft had been strikingly forward-looking and up-to-date in places, with the proto-disco of its title track and the raw funk of "Do Your Thing," Black Moses sticks very closely to the slow, sensual soul groove Hayes had already perfected on Hot Buttered Soul and other releases.

These flaws certainly hurt the album a little, and it's notably less consistent than Hot Buttered Soul and less strikingly original than Shaft. But the simple fact is, Hayes has a certain way with classic soul, injecting a familiar format with his own particular character and arrangements, that defies most competition, and the musical highlights of Black Moses stand up as some of the finest things Hayes ever did. Hayes is also infinitely more competent with arranging and singing actual songs than with the fairly formulaic instrumentals that made up much of Shaft, meaning that Black Moses, despite playing it safe, is probably a more enjoyable listening experience. Once again, as on Shaft, it's the orchestral arrangements that steal the show and make up for most of the best moments rather than the core rhythm section, who only really get a couple of moments to show their talents, like the upbeat funk of "Good Love" or "Part-Time Love." This time, the core band on most tracks consists of Hayes' own band, the Isaac Hayes Movement, with Stax's resident band the Bar-Kays, who provided instrumentation on most of Shaft, only contributing to "(They Long To Be) Close To You" and "Going In Circles." Both bands prove more than competent at playing Hayes' arrangements, but there's nothing to rival the stark, epic rawness of "Do Your Thing."

The album's title comes from a nickname given to Hayes by people at Stax in recognition of the iconic status he had established for himself within black communities as a kind of spiritual figurehead. Over the course of a few albums Hayes had modelled himself into "the model of black masculinity," as the people at Stax put it, and became an empowering figure for black men worldwide, but the nickname was one he was deeply uncomfortable with for a long time due to his deep-seated Christianity. Clearly, by the time Black Moses itself emerged it was a squeamishness he had more than overcome, as evidenced by the fact that the original album unfolded into a poster-sized image of Hayes in an ankle-length hooded robe with his arms extended like some sort of Biblical saviour. But that he ultimately accepted with open arms his role as an inspirational guide for disaffected black communities should be seen as a hugely positive thing rather than a cynical commercial one, despite the ever-so-slightly absurd posturing that accompanied it.

Although the slow, gentle sensuality that Hayes imbues into what is largely a collection of traditional and fairly innocent sixties love songs might look tame compared to the far more overt and raw sexuality on later works like Marvin Gaye's iconic Let's Get It On, the fact that he chooses to try and update fairly twee, almost prudish love songs, like the infamously saccharine Burt Bacharach and Hal David number "(They Long To Be) Close To You" with a greater sense of sensuality is clearly a loaded gesture and one that has a strong impact. It's astonishing that he's able to make "(They Long To Be) Close To You" not just musically palatable but one of the highlights of the whole album, but he pulls it off. For the first couple of minutes, consisting only of the chanted refrain and the stirring horn and string arrangements, you even forget exactly what song you're listening to, and by the time Hayes comes in singing the main melody he manages to convert it into a genuinely compelling and impactful love song rather than the piece of sentimental garbage it was in the hands of the Carpenters. The other Bacharach-David cover, "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," is less successful and perhaps the record's weakest moment, Hayes unwisely slowing things down to a snail-like crawl and failing to inject the tune with any sense of passion or real meaning.

Of the other covers, the slow groove he applies to the Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" makes for a great, sultry opener that became the album's biggest hit, and "Never Gonna Give You Up" has a playful sense of fun to it via Hayes' interplay with the chirpy refrains of the backing vocalists, with a similar effect to "(They Long To Be) Close To You." The funky guitar riff of Clay Hammond's "Part-Time Love" is another standout moment, and perhaps the closest thing to the meaner guitar moments of "Do Your Thing" or Hot Buttered Soul's "Walk On By," while the falsetto croon and dramatic string arrangements of closer "Going In Circles" are also a stirringly emotive moment.

But it's notable that, on an album consisting almost exclusively of covers, the truly astounding moments are in Hayes' own compositions. Perhaps the best-known moment on the album, albeit by fairly roundabout means, is the hauntingly beautiful "Ike's Rap II," whose descending bassline and plaintive strings were sampled by a number of trip-hop artists in the 90s including Tricky and, most famously, Portishead for their hit "Glory Box." It's a hauntingly powerful musical moment quite rightly returned to for reinvention by later generations and is made all the more powerful by the inclusion of Hayes' desperate, pleading spoken-word vocals begging a lover to give him a second chance. That it then segues into "Help Me Love," perhaps the most stirringly emotional track on the album that veers from desperately broken verses begging for aid to an incongruously triumphant and uplifting chorus replete with horns and strings and even the odd sax solo. Another rap/song segue near the album's end is another highlight in "Ike's Rap IV/A Brand New Me," in which Hayes rejoices in the transformative power of love and its ability to change everything about one's outlook and attitude even when material things remain the same. It's another gloriously uplifting melody and one of the most touchingly simple reflections on the power of love that I've heard in ages.

Admittedly, in these rap/song segue moments, it's unclear exactly what Hayes' compositional contribution was, and it may be he simply wrote the spoken word vocals and others wrote and orchestrated the song, but another huge album highlight is the only song he definitely wrote himself (in collaboration with Mickey Gregory), the enormously fun "Good Love." While many of the songs on the album look at love either with a traditional sense of reverence or with a kind of broken-hearted desperation, "Good Love" is perhaps the only one that really has fun with the theme and explores it with a sort of I-don't-give-a-damn humour. ("Listed in the Yellow Pages all around the world, 30 years' experience in loving sweet young girls.")

Black Moses was another big seller and further cemented Hayes' role as one of the most prominent black musicians of the era, and one of the few willing to push the simple roots of soul music into newer territory (while the style and arrangements of Black Moses might not be as forward-thinking as on Shaft, Hayes was still determined to have fun with music and not limit himself to three-minute radio hits but to let his band play around with things and to indulge themselves). Over subsequent years he would continue releasing music but became increasingly sporadic, and never released anything that became quite so celebrated or iconic as his early 70s output. To a modern audience he is undoubtedly best known for his recurring role as Chef in South Park, which ultimately came to an end amid a debacle regarding his refusal to be complicit in the mockery of his newfound faith in Scientology. It's a shame that Hayes' apparent "I'll deal it out but won't take it back" refusal to allow Trey Parker and Matt Stone to poke fun at his religion having happily contributed to countless other episodes making fun of other creeds and cultures, and the apparent firmness of his faith meant that by the time he died in 2008 it was under a slight cloud as being remembered as another crackpot Scientologist. Until a couple of months ago I knew very little about Hayes' musical work other than the theme from Shaft, and I'm pleased I finally got round to listening to some of his best-known albums as they demonstrate that he's so much more than the fairly obvious caricature of himself he became as Chef, and so much more than just a crackpot Scientologist. Blessed with an unforgettably soulful voice and an obvious talent both with his own compositions and with reworking the songs of others to put his own stamp on them and convey a whole new meaning in them, he's certainly a talent worthy of remembrance and one that anybody who might have dismissed him as a fairly comic figure thanks to his work on South Park should try taking seriously, as there's great stuff to be found.

Track Listing:

1. Never Can Say Goodbye (Clifton Davis)

2. (They Long To Be) Close To You (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

3. Nothing Takes The Place Of You (Toussaint McCall & Alan Robinson)

4. Man's Temptation (Curtis Mayfield)

5. Never Gonna Give You Up (Kenneth Gamble; Leon Huff & Jerry Butler)

6. Ike's Rap II/Help Me Love (Isaac Hayes; Johnny Baylor; Mickey Gregory; Luther Ingram & Tommy Tate)

7. Need To Belong To Someone (Curtis Mayfield)

8. Good Love (Mickey Gregory & Isaac Hayes)

9. Ike's Rap III/Your Love Is So Doggone Good (Isaac Hayes; Difosco Ervin & Rudy Love)

10. For The Good Times (Kris Kristofferson)

11. I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

12. Part Time Love (Clay Hammond)

13. Ike's Rap IV/A Brand New Me (Isaac Hayes; Kenneth Gamble; Thom Bell & Jerry Butler)

14. Going In Circles (Jerry Peters & Anita Poree)