Thursday, 24 September 2015

Task to review an album from 1969 - Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes

Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes


Background

Hot Buttered Soul is the second album released by the American soul musician Isaac Hayes who was mostly known for song writing and arranging for Stax Records born on the 20th of August 1942. The album was released on the 23rd of September 1969, and is recognized world wide as being a key aspect in soul music. The album was recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis and was produced by Al Bell, Marvin Thomas and Allen Jones.

“Walk On By”

The opening track “Walk On By” which is unusually long for a song, (however not the longest on the album) was composed by Burt Bacharach and the lyrics were written by Hal David. The songs original artist was Dionne Warwick and Isaac was the second out of eleven artists to cover the song. In addition Isaac was the only one out of the eleven to stretch the song to 12 minutes 2 seconds, but upon single release was shortened down to less than 5 minutes. The track reached No. 30 on the U.S. charts. Similar to all tracks in this album there’s a huge lack of lyrics in this track as Isaac must like to focus on the instrumental in his songs as it is very soothing.

“Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic”

“Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” the second track on the albums name is known for being so long due to Isaac Hayes and Stax Records making fun of people who use long words unnecessarily, so the name its self is almost a mockery. Further more the name for this song is often spelt wrong (as you could probably guess).

“One Woman”

“One Woman” is the shortest track in the album at 5 minutes 8 seconds yet manages to feel like it has the most vocals in the track. There’s not much information online about this track however I like how this track starts off with a calm slow piano which plays into the rhythm and stays on the track through out a bit quieter than the vocals but high enough in pitch and volume that you can enjoy it.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix


“By The Time I Get To Phoenix” is the longest track in the album at 18 minutes 42 seconds, this is mainly because more than half the song is Isaac Hayes telling the story and 8:40 minutes into the song the bass changes and the song truly begins. I’m sure Isaac enjoys the sound of the bass guitar as he keeps that going throughout the song from start to finish, although the song really only starts at 8:40, which I think is an interesting thing to do on such a long track. In addition the song was written my Jimmy Webb and originally recorded by Johnny Rivers in 1965, and Isaac compliments the song writer at the beginning of the song and goes on to say how he will express how he portrays the power of love through this song.


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