‘Music’ Category
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
Booker T. & the MGs, “Hang ‘Em High”
Single released from the album Soul Limbo, October 1968
#35 R&B, #9 Pop single
We almost had other Stax soundtracks to blog about, too.
In 1968, Booker T. & the MGs recorded their R&B instrumental take on Dominic Frontiere’s title track for the Clint Eastwood vehicle Hang ‘Em High. It was released as the first single from their album Soul Limbo, both in October.
This MGs version nearly bursts open from dramatic pressure. To open, drummer Jackson and bassist Dunn stretch out a tightrope between them. Cropper’s sharp rhythm guitar chops walk that line, then Booker swings out the melody (which sounds great voiced by his keyboard). Two taut, stop-time passages heighten the tension, with Cropper soloing over the second one to the fade.
According to Rob Bowman’s companion booklet to The Complete Stax-Volt Singles Volume 2, composer Frontiere was so thoroughly impressed by this inventive yet compact treatment that he offered to score three complete films, to include two more “spaghetti westerns,” with Booker T. & the MGs. Both sides began working out an arrangement that called for Cropper to create rhythm tracks and Frontiere to write the melodies. But Stax owner Jim Stewart refused to let his label’s biggest group go outside of their contract for this work, so this agreement subsequently fell through.
Frontiere also composed music for several iconic American television programs, including The Rat Patrol and The Outer Limits.
“Hang ‘Em High” was one of Stax’s few singles that fared better in the pop chart, where it broke the Top Ten, than it did on the R&B chart. Various versions appear on different Booker T. & the MGs anthologies, including a torrid live version from an April 1993 group reunion concert (with drummer Anton Fig) in Toronto on the three-CD anthology Time is Tight.
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Monday, July 14th, 2008
When Stax Records released Isaac Hayes’ second album in 1969, it was unlikely that anyone at the label considered that it might be the kind of groundbreaking record it became on so many levels. Hayes had already been a highly successful producer and songwriter for the label and even if he had ambitions as a solo artist, the lack of response to his first LP, 1967’s “Presenting Isaac Hayes” did not bode well. But “Hot Buttered Soul” was light years ahead of Ike’s debut set: with just four tracks, The Bar-Kays playing brilliantly, an unnamed female coterie of background vocalists and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra providing a sumptuous backdrop, Hayes embellished two classic songs of the day – the Bacharach/David-Dionne Warwick 1964 hit “Walk On By” and Glen Campbell’s “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” – adding vocal nuances, a soulful emphasis (particularly on ‘Phoenix,’ a country-flavored pop ode, for which Hayes created an unforgettable opening monologue) and his own distinctive baritone.
For good measure, there were two original tunes, “One Woman” (later recorded by Al Green) and Hayes’ own unpronounceable but compellingly funky “Hyperbolicsyllabicsequedalymistic” but undoubtedly, the two cover tunes (covering a total of thirty minutes of music between them) served as masterful bookends, making “Hot Buttered Soul” unlike any other piece of work geared towards an R&B/soul audience at the time.
The climactic build-up Hayes offered on both “Walk On By” and “Phoenix” was breathtaking: lyricist Hal David probably never envisaged the insertion of the phrase ‘you socked it to me, mama’ into his bittersweet tale of a broken love affair and composer Jim Webb likely never imagined Ike’s slice-of-life-and-love, eight-and-a-half minute philosophical rap that preceded the stirring interpretation Hayes brought to his tune. Personally, it was a little tough for me to get used to the ‘new’ way Ike approached “Walk On By”: it was the record by Dionne Warwick that first ‘introduced’ me to soul music and set me on the pathway to a lifelong passion and indeed, an entire career! I eventually came to enjoy and appreciate the Hayes’ version once I stopped comparing the two; and years later, when I saw Isaac and Dionne in concert as part of a nationwide tour (known as ‘A Man And A Woman’), I fully recognized just how much deep appreciation and admiration Ike felt for Dionne’s music.
“Hot Buttered Soul” – recently reissued by Concord in glorious 120 gram vinyl due to the increased interest and demand among collectors (and also available on CD) – not only established Isaac Hayes as a contemporary musical icon, it gave Stax Records a massive best-seller, at the same time initiating a whole new approach to albums by black music artists of the day. It’s no surprise that it sounds as good now as it did in ’69.
David Nathan
A/k/a the British Ambassador Of Soul
Secretary, The Rhythm & Blues Foundation (www.rhythmblues.org)
Owner,
www.soulmusic.com,
www.soulmusicstore.com,
www.soulmusicglobal.com
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Saturday, July 12th, 2008
Isaac Hayes’ soundtrack to Truck Turner, in which he also played the starring role, comprises the second half of this Double Feature. The theme song says it all, or at least most of it: “There’s some dudes in a bar with busted heads and broken jaws. Who hit ‘em?,” Ike asks. To which the Hot Buttered Soul Unlimited female vocalists reply, “Truck Turner.” “There’s some pimps in their graves - who blew those pimps away?” We get the same reply, “Truck Turner.” That’s pretty much your plot synopsis, right there.
Hayes’ instrumentation has proven more enduring if not worthwhile than the film it scores. “Blue’s Crib” is full of cool, a soul-funk groove sharply edged with guitar chords, like George Benson low-riding with War on a downtown Saturday night. This neatly segues into “Driving in the Sun,” a guitar melody so cleverly crafted that the hook nearly sounds like someone verbalizing its title.
Fans of soul-funk-jazz fusion artists such as Roy Ayers or Mandrill might enjoy the electric, extended guitar and keyboard jam of “Breakthrough.” And what a dream come true it must have been for Hayes to fantasize about “A House Full of Girls” on commission. But the hard-charging “Pursuit of the Pimpmobile” provides the action-packed funk fulcrum for the entire soundtrack, as it melts the string sound from an Aaron Spelling television production with the fire of Afro-Cuban percussion.
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Sunday, July 6th, 2008
Isaac Hayes had the disposition and talent but never found quite the right opportunity to follow up on the Hollywood success of “Theme from Shaft.” He did score two films, both in 1974; each presented circumstances and instances well suited to Hayes’ uniquely cinematic vision of soul and R&B, even if neither proved to be a particularly good movie.
Released in March ‘74, Three Tough Guys was an Italian film from the same period African-American action-adventure gangster (”blaxploitation”) genre as Shaft. It starred Fred Williamson, no stranger to the style, and also featured Hayes as a lead character. There’s not much more memorable about it.
The instrumental music on Hayes’ Tough Guys soundtrack fares a little better. “Joe Bell” crystallizes all the fine points of Hayes’ uniquely cinematic vision, as interconnected percussion, bass, guitar and horns lock down its potently soulful groove. Fiery alto saxophone leads “The Red Rooster” in its sturdy R&B cockwalk. “Hung Up On My Baby” owes its spirit if not royalties to Wes Montgomery, especially his tart, pop-with-strings work for A&M Records. (Though I’ve never seen the corresponding scene, I hope that the action here scored as the bumpin’ “Buns O’ Plenty” took place in either a bakery or a bedroom.)
Customarily, Hayes is the only named musician, with rhythm credited to The Movement and strings by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Tough Guys was arranged by Hayes, recorded at his Hot Buttered Soul studio in Memphis, and released on his subsidiary label, Enterprise Records. Built around the same type of staccato cymbal pattern that helped Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft” flow like hot liquid mercury, the high voltage Tough Guys “Title Theme” was released as a single in June ‘74 and topped out as #72 R&B.
Truck Turner, with Hayes starring on both soundtrack and celluloid, would follow in July.
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