"...Ike's Rap..."
There was
industry discussion in the October 1971 issue of Billboard Magazine as
Stax/Enterprise prepped for the release of Isaac Hayes' second double-album
"Black Moses" in the same year ("Shaft" had been issued in
July 1971). Stax had locked down all promotion of his new November 1971 opus.
This was because some DJ had reputedly been offered $300,000 for his Promo Copy
with the aim of bootlegging it.
Why would someone
offer an A&R employee such a huge amount of cash in 1971? Because his previous effort
"Shaft", as a Movie and 2LP Blaxploitation Soul Music Soundtrack, was
massive – an absolute phenomenon and in a way that few had ever seen before.
The handsome sex symbol lead actor Richard Roundtree, the bespectacled and
impossibly cool musician Isaac Hayes with his beard and bling, the wah wah
guitar theme he composed that just slaughtered all in its path worldwide - this
bad mother was everywhere. Stax was even then claiming that such was the demand
for Isaac’s fourth release, that nearly 40% of copies of "Shaft" in
American circulation were bootlegs - gazillions of them.
Few now remember
(or even know) that November 1971's "Black Moses" was going to be
Isaac Hayes' fifth No. 1 US R&B LP in a row – a feat no one had ever
achieved (he would nab another two R&B number one albums in 1974 with
"Truck Turner" and the 1976 double "Live At The Sahara
Tahoe"). Seven No. 1 R&B albums – wow!
Which brings us
via a reissue circuitous route to this 2009 foldout love-in and Remaster for
the slightly forgotten "Black Moses" splurge – and tis a wee bit sexy
thing too if you ask me. Time to get down brothers and sisters with the man
with the plan - Ike's Rap...
UK released 6
April 2009 (24 February 2009 in the USA) - "Black Moses" by ISAAC
HAYES on Universal Music Group/Stax/Concord Music Group, Inc. 0888072312388 (Barcode 888072312388) is a
Deluxe Edition offering the full 2LP Set Remastered onto 2CDs with repro
foldout cross packaging (like the original vinyl double-album) and plays out as
follows:
CD1 (50:06 minutes):
1. Never Can Say
Goodbye [Side 1]
2. (They Long To
Be) Close To You
3. Nothing Takes
The Place Of You
4. Man's
Temptation
5. Part-Time Love
[Side 4]
6. Medley: Ike's
Rap IV/A Brand New Me
7. Going In
Circles
CD2 (43:36
minutes):
1. Never Gonna
Give You Up [Side 2]
2. Medley: Ike's
Rap II/Help Me Love
3. Need To Belong
To Someone
4. Good Love
6-9969
5. Ike's Rap
III/Your Love Is So Doggone Good [Side 3]
6. For The Good
Times
7. I'll Never
Fall In Love Again
The studio
double-album "Black Moses" was released 15 November 1971 in the USA
on Enterprise ENS-5003 and February 1972 in the UK on Stax 2628 004. Produced
by ISAAC HAYES and featuring THE BAR KAYS, THE ISAAC HAYES MOVEMENT and HOT
BUTTERED & SOUL as backing bands – the double-album peaked at No. 1 on the
US R&B charts (entered 18 December 1971), No. 10 on the Pop LP Charts
(entered 11 December 1971) with a No. 38 placing on the UK LP charts in
February 1972. CD1 contains Sides 1 and 4 while CD2 contains Sides 2 and 3,
aping how the original American LPs were issued.
The first thing
that hits you is the packaging – aping for the first time since its 1971 US
release - the huge foldout cross with Isaac looking like a Bedouin preacher
asking for rain in the desert. The story by Chester Higgins of Jet Magazine
that was done in ye old Biblical style typeface across the inside of the cover
is present and accounted for too, "...And so it came to pass that 28 years
ago Isaac (Black Moses) Hayes was born in the town of Covington, Tenn., a
snoozing little hamlet... " Yeah brother.
Once unfolded,
three flaps at the end of the cross house the two CDs and 12-page booklet. I
have to say though that once out of its shrinkwrap – the thing is a bit of a
beast to handle or get back into a shape that doesn't easily crumple. The
12-page colour booklet is a pleasingly in-depth affair with November 2008 liner
notes from ROB BOWMAN, author of the acclaimed label tome "Soulsville
U.S.A.: The Story Of Stax Records". There are three black and white photos
of our hero in full-on pimpmobile dude attire complete with fur coats, glasses
and bling - while the final more humble shot shows Ike at an organ in a record
store surrounded by admiring brothers. The snap of Ike outside Soulsville USA
studios is so damn cool – stripped trousers and all. A good read then and
despite its unwieldy nature, I love that packaging.
The ROB FISHER
24-Bit Remaster was done at Pacific Multimedia and really lifts the splurge of
cover versions – all that Dolby Systems production full and punchy as Hell.
While "Shaft" was famous for its legendary Funky theme song, like its
predecessor, "Black Moses" is surprising mellow throughout – a
seducer really.
The musical
landscape of this sprawling double album is a veritable river of f cover
versions with five bits of new material amidst its sixteen tracks. Hayes does
contemporary songwriters like the Bacharach and David classic "(They Long
To Be) Close To You" made a monster number one Billboard smash by The
Carpenters and the Kris Kristofferson love song "For The Good Times"
from his 1970 debut album on Monument made a Country No. 1 single in 1970 by
Ray Price - to older R&B and Soul heroes like Toussaint McCall and his 1967
Ronn Records hit "Nothing Takes The Place Of You", the Curtis
Mayfield B-side gifted to Gene Chandler in 1963 on Vee Jay Records "Man's
Temptation" and another from 1963, the Clay Hammond song "Part-Time
Love" recorded by Little Johnnie Taylor.
Soul legends
Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Jerry Butler had written "Never Give You Up
(Never Gonna Give You Up)" for Shirley & The Shirelles on Bell Records
in 1969 – here Ike calls it simply "Never Gonna Give You Up". He
preambles his own "Ike's Rap II" into a two-song medley attaching it
to the Luther Ingram, Johnny Baylor, Tommy Tate and Mickey Gregory song
"Help Me Love". Ingram would eventually do his own version of
"Help Me Love" on his fabulous album "If Loving You Is Wrong I
Don't Want To Be Right" issued October 1972. It was in turn coupled with
"Always" (as the A-side) from the same LP and released as a KoKo
Records 45 in February 1973.
The covers keep
coming. After his own "Ike's Rap III" – Hayes tagged on a Whispers
song called "Your Love Is So Doggone Good" – a tune that was a
current May 1971 hit while the Movement was recording "Black Moses".
Hayes then dipped backwards to "Going In Circles" – a No. 15
Billboard Pop hit for The Friends Of Distinction in October 1969 on RCA Victor
Records. And for the final song, he slinked into a deadringer to his style of
Soul-ifying easy listening pop songs – the Bacharach and David smash "I'll
Never Fall In Love Again" made immortal by Dionne Warwick in 1970.
It's a
lurve-thing baby. I guess you could say that in June 2020, this relic of Soul
Music's flashier history is a bedroom swinger that's past its woke
sell-by-date. But I love it and the Audio on this has only made me want to rant
and rave about the deep-voiced one.
Chester Higgins
finishes his "Black Moses" liner notes on the original double-album
by saying, "...Black Moses of the famous "Memphis Sound" is
indeed a soulful prophet of the Chosen People, a willing servant of the Lord,
and one helluva entertaining genius, to boot..." Well, on the renewed
evidence presented here – you have to say that da Higster had a point...
