Hot Buttered Soul

By the time he got to Pheonix, she'd divorced him and married his cousin!

Isaac Hayes takes the long way round and it's a bit boring at times but when he gets there it's worth it.

Enjoying hearing all the originals tracks MF DOOM sampled, ha. Side one is easily my favourite. Side two was a little more mixed. I could do with the longer tracks being cut down more, and looking at the information for this one it seems they were indeed cut down for singles.

A soulful and epic journey from Chef. Favorite track: Walk On By

"Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" is my jam. I've covered it a few times with a local group and it's always so fun. As for the other three tracks, they are all solid in their own right; I don't believe I'll ever be the biggest fan of the huge string arrangements or backing vocalists, but Isaac's voice and the killer guitar/keys work are enough to keep me mostly onboard.

3.5/5

very enjoyable!

4/5. This album is all about the slow burn, the songs take their time slowly building up and up until they reach major instrumental/emotional climaxes. Which is best shown through album closer and my favorite song here “By the Time I get to Phoenix” which is nearly 19 minutes long, starting with just a droning organ and Issac Hayes sing-speaking, but then you start getting some drums and reeds, then horns, then he starts singing more intensely and it all leads to a great emotional finish. Something similar also happens on opener “walk on by.” At 46 minutes with only 4 songs this is far from your standard soul album, but it is great.

Isaac Hayes has a sort of mellow sophisticated soulfulness, not jazzy, and not poppy. He’s political, he employs some classical music devices, he’s cerebral, but still soulful. Sui generis in that genre. 4.5

great voice. a record id enjoy hearing at a record store, but probably not one that i would actively look for. 3.5

Never listened to this guy consciously before. Totally blew me away from the start of the first track. Great vocal command, loads of great musical ideas to keep the long tracks interesting, even a flute at the big jam at the end.

I prefer to eat my buttered bread cold, because I eat it with very high quality butter, and melting it makes it less flavourful. Anyways that's probably why I couldn't get into this album. It was fine.

Weirdly much better than i expected

Walk on by is a great song. Isaac Hayes has a good voice. These statements are unquestionably true, but i do not need a 12 minute version of the song.

I enjoyed the funk of the second track, but even its title is too long even if the first track has made me see 10 minutes as a short track. It just doesn't go anywhere, i can see it being an enjoyable groove high on life (or more likely other substances) in a live environment, but on record it feels like s good case for radio edits. Around the 7 minute mark where we go into a piano and bass break it is just too much and thats before it becomes apparent this is playing the song out.

One woman is a far more sedate soulful affair. However it is just too schmaltzy for me and at times i just catch myself picturing the image of chef singing the song. It’s a shame that the more acceptable length song is actually the one i like least.

The last track comes on i glance at its length and begin praying for a hidden track rather than a near 19 minute track, but the fact its past three minutes before any singing is even vaguely a possibility and even then it’s only a suggestion, kills all hope. Just shy of the 9 minute mark actually singing breaks out! Unfortunately it’s the schmaltz of track 3. The last few minutes when the organ, horns and drums kick in are a joy, but a short lived one.

With some proper editing this is a good ep, without it is self indulgent pap. A good artist either decent material, but ruined by length.

I had never heard this version of Walk On By. It gets full marks for trying something so different, though I'm not sure anything could beat Dionne Warwick. And while I enjoyed it, I didn't need 12 minutes of it.

The follow up track that I'm never going to successfully pronounce, was probably my favourite. However, the moment he said "Your sweet phalanges know how to squeeze" all I could picture in my brain was Chef taking about his chocolate salty balls. Also it's again too long. But it did have a rare occurrence of the instrumentation fading between left and right which I enjoyed rather than it making me feel seasick.

One Woman. Normal song length: yay! Schmaltzy nonsense: boo!

And finally, the track that broke me. 9 minutes of chatting before finally getting to another 9 minutes of actual song should be considered a crime.

It's so hard for me to mark this as parts are a 5 and parts are a 1.... Possibly more 1 than 5 though, so I'm plumping for:

2/5

Not much to say about this album. It's nice. It's somewhat interesting even with such long songs. There's a 18 minute track that has talking for the first 8 minutes, which I feel is too extensive.

I enjoyed this one much more than I expected. It's not my favourite type of music, but this will get at least 4 stars. I really liked "Walk on By" and "By the time I got to Phoenix".

Coolness factor: 100
With all the coolness associated with Isaac Hayes — the voice behind the Blaxploitation classic Shaft — it’s easy to forget that he was also a musical innovator. At a time when progressive rock bands in Britain were primarily embracing the long song format, he released Hot Buttered Soul, an album featuring only four tracks, two of which are well over 10 minutes long (the opener 'Walk on by' and the closer 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix'), one just under that length ('Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic', 9:10 minutes) and one at 'just' 5:10 minutes ('One Woman'). It should have been commercial suicide, even in the world of soul music. Instead of flopping, however, Hayes's first masterpiece expanded the genre and opened up new avenues for it in the coming decade. Ironically, it was this unusual album that made him a star of black music, and skilfully edited singles then ensured commercial success in the charts. A milestone from a giant of soul music.

Oh my god. WOW. I had never heard of this album before, I didn't know who Isaac Hayes was, and I was unsure what to expect. I'm really not familiar with soul, outside of a couple other albums from this list I've already heard.

This is MAGICAL. Absolutely beautiful. Hayes' singing is gorgeous, the production is immaculate, the placement of the strings and electric guitar could not have worked out better. I literally did not know that soul music could sound like this.

Having an 18-minute song as the closer to your soul record was certainly bold for the time, but imagine the period that this album came from. You didn't have a phone to scroll through, no video games to play, no one to text while you were listening to tell them how boring the song was. All you could do was lay back, close your eyes and listen to Mr. Hayes sing-talk you a story. It's an incredible listen, and that track isn't even my favorite on here. This is fucking awesome.

I would have given this a five if it wasn't for the long monologue before the final track. It killed the pace of the album, although it made it more satisfying when the track properly started. Edging?

Also I have never watched South Park and, while reading his wikipedia, I was surprised to discover this was actually the 1969 album of a South Park voice actor.

I had never heard of Isaac Hayes before, and I'm quite ashamed that was the case. Bloke is the epitome of smooth. Would not be surprised if he invented that word too.

Highlight of the album was easily One Woman. What a fucking song that is holy shit.

The album loves to meander though. I was thinking about giving it a 3 because of the extent of the meandering. That 8+ minute intro to the final song was also too excessive. However, I think because of how smooth it is and how good the non-meandery bits were I can give it a 4. There will be times where I can play this in the background.

This album is a tour-de-force. (Whatever that means.)