Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008
August 11, 2008

Isaac Hayes collapsed and died on Sunday in his home in East Memphis, Tennessee. The singer/songwriter/composer/record producer/actor was 65 years old.

I don’t have to tell you that Hayes wrote and performed the coolest movie music of all time--the title song and soundtrack from 1971’s Shaft. And that’s nothing to argue about.

But Hayes’s impressions and accomplishments reached for beyond his Oscar-winning score that helped usher in the black exploitation film cycle of the Seventies.

His 40-year live and studio discography speaks for itself, so let’s start with his other movie music, as the Shaft theme was far from being Hayes’s only memorable contribution to the cinematic soundscape. His songs were heard in dozens of movies and TV shows over the past three decades. I’m most partial to Hayes’s covers of Burt Bacharach‘s “Walk On By” and “The Look of Love,” which were put to outstanding use in the Hughes Brothers’ 1995 Dead Presidents; and “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” (from his second studio album, 1969’s seminal Hot Buttered Soul) added a dose of period psychedelic soul to last year’s Zodiac from David Fincher.

As for his film and television work, his work on TV’s South Park as the irascible “Chef,” like his extensive recording history and the Shaft theme, speaks for itself. Though Hayes never broke through as a leading man in the movies--a stature he took on only once in 1974’s Truck Turner (which he also composed the score for)--he was a solid supporting presence in a truckload of projects. For me, his most memorable performances include his regular appearances as ex-con strongman Randolph “Rockfish” Fitchon in TV’s The Rockford Files and his featured turns in such flicks as 1981’s Escape from New York, 1988’s I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, 1994’s It Could Happen To You and, more recently, 2005’s Hustle & Flow.

His hot buttered presence will be missed.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on August 11, 2008 | Comments (1)