Years ago I saw Isaac Hayes on a late show, Letterman or some other show, I've forgotten. He was conducting a big band, might have had strings and a horn section, I've forgotten that too. What I do remember is there was a shitload of musicians and he was leading them through a note for note rendition of "Shaft" that sounded exactly like the record. I knew he was multi-talented as a performer, songwriter and arranger, but watching this performance it hit me that he was not unlike Brian Wilson, Phil Spector or some other producer in that the huge production was heard first in his head. All the building blocks were there. Everything I've heard since has been informed by that viewing. There are very few people who can stretch a song out like Hayes. The tension raising and lowering, climaxing, exhaling, crescendos and all manners of dragging you back in.
Hayes's cover of Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By" (hit version by Dionne Warwick), is a perfect example. It's also an excuse to repost the song yet again, because the old link went dead. We can't be sitting around here without a working link to this tour de force. So there's that and his cover of "Come Together". Six minutes of top 40 turned into twenty four minutes of trippy layered downtempo subtly psychedelic soul.
Isaac Hayes - Walk On By mp3 at Internet Archive
Isaac Hayes - Something mp3 at The Frump
