19. Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul (1969) – “Walk On By”

Isaac Hayes came up originally in the ‘60s as an influential songwriter at the Memphis-based Stax label, cowriting “Soul Man” which became a hit for Sam & Dave in 1967. Later he struck big with the score for the 1971 blaxploitation picture Shaft. In between his soul was psychedelicized and he delivered up a stone classic in Hot Buttered Soul, which he followed with two more albums similar in intent and strategy (The Isaac Hayes Movement and ... To Be Continued)—that is, approximately two songs per albums side, covers of well-known pop songs, and running times that approached and often sailed by the double-digit minutes mark. “Walk On By” is the place to start—it's conveniently first on the LP too. For the most part it’s the place I’ve stayed. This mighty 12-minute cover of the Bacharach-David standard, originally recorded by Dionne Warwick. takes your heart away and explodes with delicious noise. From the opening it’s easy to see the plan—the notes are longer, the tempo slower, there appears to be a sawing orchestra on hand swelling up at the big moments. Guesting Funkadelic alum Harold Beane and his vicious fuzz-toned guitar lead a march to the glorious entry of Hayes’s vocal, a rumbling mumble sorely beset by the vicissitudes and pompatus of love. It goes way down deep as he opens up every bit of the agony. It’s your beloved one and all you can do is hope they will just pretend they don’t know you. “You put the hurt on me,” he moans, getting to the point. (“when you said it,” the chick singers sing) “You socked it to me, mama. When you said goodbye.” (wail wail) Warwick made it work dramatically, even though the production on her more upbeat version is buoyed by gently puffing horns and sweet strings. Hayes takes it another direction and I have never heard the song again in the same way, however indelible Warwick’s version is (and it is—it is Hayes’s genius to recognize that it is). On the flip side of Hot Buttered Soul Hayes tries repeating the trick: Jimmy Webb’s beautiful “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” here clocking in at 18 minutes. I swear Hayes holds down a single uninterrupted organ chord for the first half of it, and the subsequent release and finally getting into something like a song is liberating and revelatory, a brilliant moment. But 18 minutes is a little long for that payoff. The rest of Hot Buttered Soul— a tender ballad, “One Woman,” and the playful "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" riffing on Mary Poppins syllables—can be taken or dispensed with at will.