Presenting Isaac Hayes Superstar

Among the Kwottos of Northern Nigeria the King of Panda used to be regarded as an incarnate divinity, who had power over the elements. Nevertheless at an annual festival one of the king’s slaves, a strong, handsome man, was allowed for a single day to wear a leopard’s skin (the badge of royalty) and to adorn his head with a pair of buffalo horns; thus arrayed, and attended by a bodyguard of 50 men, armed with stout sticks, he used to strut proudly about the town, explaining, “I am king at this festival. Let no one dispute my will. . . .” Meantime the real king provided him with as much beer to drink and as many slave women for concubines as he cared to ask for.
– Sir James Frazer, ‘The Golden Bough’

New York – Precisely, Sir James! Isaac Hayes comes on just like a fearsome festival stand-in – even if his bodyguards are armed only with walkie-talkies, his costume is Sunset Strip African, and the ritual he performs is far more Apollo than Kwotto.

After the MC has asked for a “warm round of applause for the Number One Black Entertainer in the World,” and the band has broken into the “Theme from Shaft,” a black Verushka, her icy beauty accented by her gleaming bald head, stalks onto the stage. She prowls about in a red and white imitation zebra poncho, glaring at the audience. A concubine, perhaps?

Finally, she crooks her finger at stage right. A pause as the anticipation builds and then Isaac Hayes enters. Tall and broad-shouldered, he appears to be cleverly disguised as a grass hut. He moves rigidly, as if on stilts, to the woman; upon closer examination he turns out to be wearing a sort of British magistrate’s wig fashioned out of straw, a long mantle of African cloth and a grass skirt. But there is no doubt that he is an imposingly strong, handsome man. He and the woman go through a routine of choreographed lasciviousness that climaxes as she tears off his mantle. He raises his bare arms as if to say, “I am king at this festival,” and the crowd goes crazy.

What follows this bit of theater is an hour of beautifully executed lounge music, supplemented by Isaac’s exhortations (“Is there soul in the hall!”), his droll raps on the twin themes of jealousy and infidelity, his long, monotonous vocals, and his organ playing. As the show progresses he becomes less and less redoubtable. He introduces his vibraphone solo with the words: “If I miss a couple of notes, y’all figure it’s ’cause the sticks are crooked.” The shaman, it turns out, is just folks.

After the stunning entrance, the rest of the show is one long, smooth ride downhill – which is how many observers see Ike Hayes’ career of late. Of course, with both Black Moses and Shaft hovering around the top of Billboard’s LP chart, Ike has never enjoyed greater fame or commercial success. But this is the man who with David Porter created an electrifying repertoire of soul songs for Sam and Dave, including “Soul Man” and “I Thank You”; it is hard to hear any of that rhythm and blues magic in most of the Middle-of-the-Road music that Ike is turning out today.

A prominent black writer privately accuses Ike of perpetrating “the ultimate degradation of black music.” A white critic calls him “the black McKuen.” A jazz musician from Isaac’s hometown of Memphis offhandedly explains the change: “It’s simple. Ike fried his mind on acid and his music’s never been the same.”

When I asked Ike whether psychedelic drugs had caused him to write a new kind of music, he simply shook his head and in his firm, polite way said, “No.”

“The drug thing did not have an effect on me,” he said. “For one thing, I’m not singing the same kind of song because I cannot sing as strong and as hard and as driving as Sam and Dave.”

Ike sat back on the orange sofa in his small suite at the Summit Hotel. With his beard, baldness and shades, he looks of indeterminate age; actually he is 29. He was wearing a long robe of Indian cloth and wine-colored silk socks. Saving his worn voice for two evening shows at Philharmonic Hall, he spoke softly and quickly, with none of his measured stage cadences. He answered all questions with unshakable Southern courtesy. As he addressed himself to the matter of the change in his music he looked into space, occasionally darting his eyes to check for reactions.

“The R&B feeling is still there,” he said. “But the sound might be a bit more sophisticated. You see, just like anything else progresses, sound does the same. The sound spectrum gets broader; a person’s scope enlarges. For instance, ten years ago, a kid 16 couldn’t hear all these things on a record, couldn’t appreciate them. I’m just expressing myself in the way that I know how; I’m not trying to purposely be different. So you hear all these strings or things I put on my arrangements – these are things I heard all my life.”