Presenting Isaac Hayes

Within a couple of years, Ike had landed a steady piano-playing job with a nightclub band led by Floyd Newman, a charter member of the Stax house band, the Mar-Keys. Newman took his nightclub band to record at Stax, and Ike got his break.

"I'd been to Stax about three other times auditioning, but we were always turned down. This time I said, 'Hell, I'm in here now, I'll use the Trojan horse trick.'" The president of Stax liked his keyboard work and asked him to fill in for Booker T. Jones, who was away on sabbatical. Thus he began his career as sideman, composer, and producer — functions which he performed in various permutations for the Emotions and the Soul Children as well as for Sam and Dave and Otis. Trying to emulate Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstine, he even cut a vocal single; it flopped and he gave up thoughts of stardom.

"But then later on," he said, "I put out an album called Presenting Isaac Hayes. Well, I wasn't satisfied with it, I didn't think they were going to release it 'cause at that time I wasn't in full control of my mental and spiritual facilities because I was under the influence of alcohol." Isaac raced his words. Evidently he was still uncomfortable at the thought of the session, which took place with drummer Al Jackson and bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, both Stax regulars.

"We had a birthday party," he continued, "so we had a few drinks and some guy said, 'Let's cut a record.' OK. Duck and I'd drunk about two bottles of hot champagne. So it was a fun thing, unrehearsed, completely impromptu. Still, they put it out."

Presenting Isaac Hayes, a bizarre and highly personal amalgam of blues and jazz, did not sell well. Ike retired once again as a soloist until the making of Hot Buttered Soul, the success of which elevated him to his present status as the first and most famous composer of easy-listening soul music, not to mention an executive position at Stax.

Now, when he is not making four or five appearances a week on the road, playing to increasingly white audiences, he is trying to keep up with a killing schedule at Stax. "I go in the studio at say nine o'clock at night and come out at six the next morning. Then I have to go into the office at ten in the morning to take care of administrative things."

He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Memphis Black Knights, an organization formed after the assassination of Dr. King to work against police brutality, job discrimination and inadequate housing for blacks. During last year's Memphis riots, he was part of a delegation that convinced the mayor to lift an imprudent curfew that might have caused more bloodshed. A year ago he performed at Hunter College in New York for a Soledad Brothers benefit. "I contributed my talents to that because they were political prisoners," he said. "This is where I'm at. I'm not the turn-the-other-cheek kind of person, no. But I believe in using tact and intelligence."

For all his success, Ike has stayed remarkably loyal to his Memphis roots. His musical staff includes two friends from his bluesband days, and his road staff of 28 is said to be liberally padded with hometown friends. Some of these serve in the security force that always surrounds him during concerts. There is also the masseuse/barber/manicurist who gives Ike's pate its bi-weekly close cropping. "It's no gimmick or anything, I've done it since 1964," Ike said a little defensively. "It's just so my scalp can breathe."

"For the future," he said, "I feel I might be of more value to Stax abroad rather than being there in the office, so I might just give it up. I'll produce, write and arrange, but it'll be on a limited basis.

"I would love to play great black figures in history, in films. I've seen them played, but played by white men, which I didn't knock at that particular time. But now is the time when they're telling it just like it is. So I would like to play Hannibal, a figure like that. Also I would like to play a dramatic role. I don't know if I'm capable, but I'd like to know. I've always wanted to do that."

[From Issue 102 — February 17, 1972]