In terms of groundbreaking soul albums, Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul was Eric the Red to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
Hayes was born on August 20, 1942, in Covington, Tennessee, and moved to Memphis at age seven. While in high school, he tried three separate times to get in with Stax Records, first with a band called Sir Isaac & The Do-Dads, next with a vocal group called the Teen Tones, and the third time with a blues band, Sir Calvin Valentine & His Swinging Cats. Each time, Hayes was turned away.
Later, he worked with Floyd Newman as a keyboardist. When Newman went into the Stax studios to make a record, label president Jim Stewart was impressed enough with Hayes' keyboard playing to offer him a job. His first session, with Otis Redding, was in early 1964.
At around this time, Hayes met David Porter, who was trying to sell him life insurance. They became songwriting partners and really took off when Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought Sam & Dave to Memphis to record at Stax. Hayes and Porter wrote the majority of Sam & Dave's greatest songs, including "Hold On! I'm Comin'," "I Thank You," and "Soul Man."
Isaac's debut as a Stax recording artist, Presenting Isaac Hayes, was a casual one-take affair done in jazz-trio style with Al Jackson and Duck Dunn of Booker T. & The MGs after a long night of drinking in the studio. His second album, Hot Buttered Soul, was pretty much an afterthought.
Hayes, whose bosses discouraged his singing, didn't even cut the LP at Stax, but at the Ardent Studio across town, because Stax had no available studio time. He wanted to cut the album primarily as an excuse to wax an 18-minute version of "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." It never occurred to Hayes that a seven-minute edit of the song would become a hit single or that Hot Buttered Soul would go triple platinum and set a new trend in African-American music!
In 1971, Hayes was commissioned to score the blaxploitation film Shaft. His recording of the theme song not only hit #1 on the Billboard pop charts--only the second Stax single to do so-- but became the first African-American composition to win the Academy Award for Best Song.
Isaac Hayes went on to score other films while enjoying sporadic chart success. His last top twenty pop single, in 1980, was a disco-flavored remake of Roy Hamilton's "Don't Let Go." Today Hayes is a New York radio D.J. in the Adult Urban format. He also supplied the voice of "Chef" on the animated TV series South Park until Hayes quit the show in April 2006. Seems he didn't appreciate South Park's made fun of Scientology!
SOURCE: Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul
Music
RECOMMENDED CD: Hot Buttered Soul
(Enterprise/Stax)
The name Leon Haywood may not mean much to pop fans, but his R&B chart career spanned the soul, funk and disco eras.
The singer/keyboardist was born in Houston on February 11, 1942, and grew up on the blues. His parents got him into the piano when he was about three. At around 14, he played with a professional group who worked a lot of local gigs.
For a time, Haywood accompanied Guitar Slim ("The Things I Used To Do," 1954) and Clarence Greene. He moved to Los Angeles and eventually hooked up with saxophone legend Big Jay McNeely. In 1962, McNeely arranged for Haywood to record his first disc, an instrumental for the Swingin' label called "Without A Love." It sold about 100,000 copies, but Haywood made no money off it. He later joined Sam Cooke's band as a keyboardist, and stayed on until the soul pioneer's death.
Under the management of the L.A. R&B disc jockey Magnificent Montague, Haywood enjoyed his first chart single in 1965. "She's With Her Other Love," on the Imperial label, reached #92 pop and #13 R&B. Unfortunately for Haywood, Imperial had made a deal directly with Montague, who got all the royalty checks and never gave his client a cent. To add insult to injury, the label misspelled the singer's name "Hayward"! Two years later, under his real name, he was on Decca, and recorded the beach soul classic, "It's Got To Be Mellow."
In 1975, after many singles for Decca, Capitol, Atlantic, et al, Haywood enjoyed his only top forty pop hit, "I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You," on 20th Century. He went on to make the R&B charts an additional twenty times. His biggest R&B hit, "Don't Push it, Don't Force It," managed #2 in 1980.
Haywood continues into the '90s as an executive/producer with Edge Records.
SOURCE: Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders
Another singer who shined for one brief moment, Bobby Hebb left behind one of the greatest "lounge soul" hits of all time.
Born in Nashville on July 26, 1941, Hebb was a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who was featured on the Grand Ole Opry at twelve. He later signed with the Philips label and created "Sunny," which proved once and for all that yes, it is possible to be mellow and soulful. The single rose to #3 pop and #2 R&B in the summer of 1966.
Hebb's follow-up, "A Satisfied Mind," reached #39 pop and #4 R&B that fall, after which he receded into the background. But if just for "Sunny" alone, we need to remember and appreciate this man's contribution to soul.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid.
I don't know much about Joe Hinton, but since he recorded one of my all-time favorite ballads, I just had to include him on this page.
He was born in Texas in 1929 and died in Boston on August 13, 1968. Hinton sang gospel with both the Spirits of Memphis and the Chosen Gospel Singers. On the Texas-based Back Beat label, Hinton placed four singles on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1963-65: "You Know It Ain't Right," "Better To Give Than Receive," "I Want A Little Girl," and his biggest hit, Willie Nelson's "Funny."
A truly remarkable recording, "Funny" featured Hinton's classic Soul Sinatra vocal style at the top of its form, and a great ad-lib in the closing verse, "You never can tell when Joe Hinton will come back in town." (Trust me, it sounds much better than it reads.) And the record ends with a glass-shattering falsetto that's had me coming back for more since I first heard the tune on AM oldies radio back in 1978. "Funny" was a major hit to boot, but good luck trying to find it on oldies radio.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid.
A truly gifted and soulful singer, Brenda Holloway was on Motown at the same time as Mary Wells, Martha & The Vandellas, the Marvelettes, and the Supremes. Since she had fewer hits than any of those acts, Holloway has been unjustly forgotten. Hell, she barely got a passing mention in Berry Gordy's autobiography!
One of the first non-Detroiters to record for Motown, Holloway was born in Atascadero, California (between San Francisco and L.A.), on June 21, 1946. Her family moved to Los Angeles two years later.
The Holloways were a musical family. Brenda sang in church, and in school she learned the violin, cello, viola, bass, and flute. Her ambition was to be a concert violinist and, like so many others, she longed to make music work for her as a way out of the ghetto. One Sunday, when she was performing at church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—who was visiting—told Brenda, "Young lady, you have a gift and you should keep singing."
Holloway sang in a high school group with Walter and Wallace Scott, later of the Whispers. But she didn’t think the brothers were serious about music, so she left. Brenda’s sister, Patrice Holloway, recorded for Bob Keane’s Del-Fi Records, and got Brenda on the label, as well. Among the songs she cut at Del-Fi were "Echo" and the original version of her future Motown hit, "Every Little Bit Hurts." At that time, Brenda met producer/songwriter Hal Davis and did some duets with him. They also had a group called the Wattisans, who sang back-up for singers like Johnny Rivers and Tina Turner.
Davis had a friend who knew Berry Gordy at Motown. When Gordy was in L.A. for a disc jockeys’ convention at the Coconut Grove, Davis took Brenda there. She dressed to the hilt and told a man standing outside one of the rooms that she wanted to meet Berry Gordy. An hour later, the same guy came back and said, "I’m Berry Gordy and I want to sign you to Motown." Holloway did her first sessions in L.A., but later spent a month at a time recording in Detroit.
Per Brenda, the first time she heard "Every Little Bit Hurts," she didn’t want to record it. She acted crazy at the session and insists that she sounds like she’s crying on the record because she was upset. This account, however, does not jibe with her having previously recorded the song for Del-Fi. (Note: The earlier version of "Every Little Bit Hurts" is available on the CD, Gee Baby Gee: The Del-Fi Girl Groups.)
However she came to record the song, "Every Little Bit Hurts" was the record that made things start to happen for Brenda Holloway. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on May 2, 1964, and reached #13 in a ten-week stay. (Billboard did not publish an R&B chart in 1964.)
Holloway’s friend, singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon, had toured with the Beatles. Brenda asked DeShannon to put in a good word for her. The Fab Four knew "Every Little Bit Hurts," and soon called Berry Gordy’s office to ask if Brenda would tour with them.
Holloway’s subsequent chart entries included "I’ll Always Love You" (#60 pop, 1964), "When I’m Gone" (#25 pop, #12 R&B, 1965), "Operator" (#78 pop, #36 R&B, 1965), "Just Look What You’ve Done" (#69 pop, #21 R&B, 1967), and the original version of "You’ve Made Me So Very Happy" (#39 pop, #40 R&B, 1967).
Brenda later became a background singer with Joe Cocker. More recently, after many years away from the music business, Holloway has returned. Her songs and concert appearances are in particular demand in England, where she has long been a favorite on the Northern Soul scene.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid; CD liner notes (see
below)
RECOMMENDED CD: The Very Best of Brenda Holloway
(Motown)
I'm a sucker for a falsetto ballad, so it stands to reason that the only Eddie Holman song most people know reduces me to melted butter each time I hear it.
He was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on June 3, 1946, and was a child performer who appeared in Off-Broadway theaters as Little Eddie. Holman also was a regular on "The Children's Hour" on NBC-TV.
He attended the Victoria School of Music in New York and Cheyney State College in Philadelphia, and first recorded for the Leopard and Ascot labels in the early '60s. In late 1965, Holman had the first of his ten R&B chart singles when "This Can't Be True," on the Parkway label, hit #17. (On the pop charts, it reached #57.)
He had additional R&B hits with "Am I A Loser" in 1966 and "Love You" in 1969, by which time Holman was on ABC. At the end of 1969, he cut a falsetto-drenched remake of Ruby & The Romantics' seven-year-old hit, "Hey There Lonely Boy." With the gender changed, Holman's single entered the charts in December of 1969. By early the next year, his shiver-inducing ballad was at #2 pop and #4 R&B. (By the way, Holman did not want to record "Hey There, Lonely Girl," but did so at the insistence of his wife.)
While that was Eddie Holman's only real pop hit, he remained in the R&B top thirty through 1977. Plus, "Hey There Lonely Girl" became a top ten hit in the U.K. in 1974.
Some time in the '80s, Holman became a born-again Christian and studied for a degree in theology. He recorded such noted gospel releases as United, "Holy Ghost," and "Give It All To The Lord." Holman was still going strong through the '90s with secular recordings on the GSF, Silver Bird, and Salsoul labels, as well as on his own Philadelphia-based Agape Records.
SOURCE: Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders
Jimmy Hughes was born in Florence, Alabama. By age eight, he was the lead singer of his church choir. For years, he sang in various gospel groups, most notably the Singing Clouds, who often made local radio appearances. In 1962, while Hughes was working at the Robbins Rubber Company in nearby Leighton, Alabama, a friend convinced him to drop by Rick Hall’s Wilson Dam studio to audition on some secular recordings.
Hall, who had just produced Arthur Alexander’s hit, "You Better Move On," taped several of Hughes’ songs, and managed to lease "I’m Qualified" to the Philly-based Jamie/Guyden label. Hall had a gut feeling that Hughes could have a hit with "Steal Away," a dank, adulterous ballad that the singer had written. After several labels rejected the track, Hall set up his own label, Fame, to put the single out himself.
His faith in Hughes paid off. "Steal Away" entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 20, 1964, and reached #17 in a twelve-week stay. (Billboard did not publish an R&B chart that year.) While it proved to be Hughes’ only major pop hit, he subsequently did well on the R&B charts through 1968 with songs like "Neighbor, Neighbor," "I Worship The Ground You Walk On," "Why Not Tonight," and "I Like Everything About You."
By the end of the ‘60s, Jimmy Hughes decided that he’d had enough of the music business, and walked away from it all. As he told Peter Guralnick in Sweet Soul Music, "I enjoyed performing, but I missed my family. When I quit, I didn’t miss it one bit."
Contrary to what you may have heard, Jimmy Hughes did not pass away in 1997. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the man is still alive.
SOUCRES: Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders; Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music