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By 1969, black artists were following rock's lead and recording extended epics. At the forefront of such experimentation was big bad Isaac Hayes, co-author of countless Stax classics and an artist in his own right. On this, his second album, Hayes takes two adult-pop benchmarks, Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By" and Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and spins them out into slow-building sermons lasting 12 and 18.5 minutes apiece. Heavily romantic, they predate by two years Barry White's symphonic adventures in the same style, revolutionising soul music in the process. Meanwhile, on the album's third epic, the 10-minute "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic", Hayes and his backing band the Bar-Kays wind up sounding, bizarrely, like a black Crazy Horse. --Barney Hoskyns
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I can remember well the first time I heard this album. Used to a diet of Soul from the more commercial end of the spectrum, this was the album that sent me on a journey to discover Soul and Funk in all its forms - and what an album!!
I cannot hear Ike's version of "Walk on By" without marvelling at the sheer audacity of the man - but I love it, the strings, the guitars, the slow build up (will he ever sing?) and then the gravelly vocal - epic stuff.
There' more - "...Phoenix" is the same but more so, and while "One Woman" is almost standard fare, Hyper..." was the forerunner of the funk workouts Ike would become famous for on "Shaft".
No. this is not for everyone, and there are better albums but Soul music would not be the same without it and I love it.
I cannot hear Ike's version of "Walk on By" without marvelling at the sheer audacity of the man - but I love it, the strings, the guitars, the slow build up (will he ever sing?) and then the gravelly vocal - epic stuff.
There' more - "...Phoenix" is the same but more so, and while "One Woman" is almost standard fare, Hyper..." was the forerunner of the funk workouts Ike would become famous for on "Shaft".
No. this is not for everyone, and there are better albums but Soul music would not be the same without it and I love it.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It starts with a crisp peal of percussion and then the strings flow dreamily in. They seethe with honeyed intensity but then glistening steely bursts of guitar crackle like lightning on the horizon. Then they sound suddenly wonky, slightly out of key before that incredible rumble of a voice joins the fray with admirable restraint. Over the next ten minutes Isaac Hayes takes us through a rendition of “Walk on by” that is both graceful and majestic ending with a string twanging fevered intensity and along the way incorporates girly backing vocals, a clarinet and fermented key boards.
Isaac Hayes recorded “Hot Buttered Soul” in 1969, his first album for Stax records he was shoved into a studio at short notice along with three producers and the Bar -Kay’s rhythm section under the instructions to produce anything as long as he did it with alacrity. Which is why Hayes got away with producing an album that contained just four songs, only one of them an original, and saw him produce not so much cover versions as stretch -limo versions as he distend the originals way beyond their intended lengths through audacious instrumentation arrangements and slow-mo raps that if done by any one else would be so corny they could be sponsored by Green Giant.
His opening take on Bacharach/Davids “Walk on by” leads into the one original song on the album the tongue dislocating “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” which is a fantastic funk work out with hip swivelling bass and swanky licks of wah wah which ends with demented piano. His version of Chalmers/Rhodes “One Woman” is relatively restrained coming in under six minutes with more female backing and those trademark strings which leads into his truly extraordinary version of Jimmy Webbs “By the time I get to Phoenix”. Here Hayes over lachrymose organ and swishes of hi-hat actually introduces the song he’s going to sing before embarking on an epic tale of betrayal and love gone bad. Then those strings quiver in, the horns break out like a rash, the clarinet and piano motifs weep sympathetically in the background and Hayes sings the song with increasing crooning vehemence while the instruments rise in fervour until it reaches a point of such glorious epiphany it’s almost masochistic. “You had a good heart and you abused it” he sings. Listening to this it’s hard to disagree.
This is a brilliant album One of the truly great soul releases up there with anything by Green, Gaye or Mayfield. In fact in terms of its fervent emotional catharsis it’s up their with anything in the entire musical canon.
Isaac Hayes recorded “Hot Buttered Soul” in 1969, his first album for Stax records he was shoved into a studio at short notice along with three producers and the Bar -Kay’s rhythm section under the instructions to produce anything as long as he did it with alacrity. Which is why Hayes got away with producing an album that contained just four songs, only one of them an original, and saw him produce not so much cover versions as stretch -limo versions as he distend the originals way beyond their intended lengths through audacious instrumentation arrangements and slow-mo raps that if done by any one else would be so corny they could be sponsored by Green Giant.
His opening take on Bacharach/Davids “Walk on by” leads into the one original song on the album the tongue dislocating “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” which is a fantastic funk work out with hip swivelling bass and swanky licks of wah wah which ends with demented piano. His version of Chalmers/Rhodes “One Woman” is relatively restrained coming in under six minutes with more female backing and those trademark strings which leads into his truly extraordinary version of Jimmy Webbs “By the time I get to Phoenix”. Here Hayes over lachrymose organ and swishes of hi-hat actually introduces the song he’s going to sing before embarking on an epic tale of betrayal and love gone bad. Then those strings quiver in, the horns break out like a rash, the clarinet and piano motifs weep sympathetically in the background and Hayes sings the song with increasing crooning vehemence while the instruments rise in fervour until it reaches a point of such glorious epiphany it’s almost masochistic. “You had a good heart and you abused it” he sings. Listening to this it’s hard to disagree.
This is a brilliant album One of the truly great soul releases up there with anything by Green, Gaye or Mayfield. In fact in terms of its fervent emotional catharsis it’s up their with anything in the entire musical canon.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This really is a landmark album in black music, whereby taking white MOR tunes and covering it for the soul movement was something that had never been done before. It also blazed a trail for the lush 70's soul movement that this album undoubtedly influenced. You'll probably be aware of the opening of Walk on By from the Wu Tang sample, but the epic, drawn out melodrama is nothing like Burt Bacharach intended. Hyperbolic... has the most lasciviously funky riff that no white person could ever pull off convincingly, while it's safe to say that during the 18 minutes of By the Time I Get To Phoenix, the couple could have patched up their differences, renewed their marriage vows and booked a dirty weekend with minutes to spare. A preposterously overblown epic, this is Isaac Hayes at his most wonderfully and excessive and every home should have a copy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A different level!
I always wanted to own this album. I didn't realise why until I received it today and I just haven't stopped playing it. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Desi
Hot buttered chef
A wonderful classic album by `the chef` Isaac Hayes...my only grumble is that the cd is taken straight from the original album which was mastered at very low volume;surely the cd... Read more
Published 9 months ago by geoff hummerstone
Hot Buttered Soul - Isaac Hayes.
Funky, soulful, romantic, groundbreaking and a very good listen. Just a few of the hyperbolic adjectives that spring to mind when thinking about this superb album. Read more
Published on 30 July 2009 by Victor
Forget the rest cos this is the best
At Glastonbury 2003, (i think), Hayes did a set which consisted of 15 minutes of 'SHAFT!' he's a complicated man etc. Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2004 by D. B. Dalglish
Bloated, Tedious, Over Rated
It is difficult for me to quite understand how this has become such a classic. Perhaps it is the wonderful production of 'Walk on By'. Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2004 by "matt43230"
Originally unique.
Isaac Hayes' treatment of sixties standards on this album must have been a real door opener for the soul music genre. Read more
Published on 14 Jan 2002
Still the ultimate soul album- all others follow
THis is Isaac at his best, from the slow lyrics of the look of love, the love triangle One Woman through to the greatest interpretation of Jimmy Webbs By the time I get to Phoenix... Read more
Published on 30 Mar 2000
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