Isaac On His First Go Round: Sir Isaac & The Doo-Dads

In 1962, Isaac Hayes was graduating Manassas High School in Memphis, and contemplating whether to find a way to study for his early ambition of becoming a doctor, find a steady job at a local meat-packing company to support his young family, or to pursue a career in music...

After a guidance counsellor at school had persuaded him to enter a talent concert, which he won by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back", Isaac had begun to learn the baritone and alto sax with Lucian Coleman, and had begun to make contacts with some of Memphis' premier musicians, whom he would watch as they turned up to play at the clubs on Thomas Street in the 'North Chicago' district of Memphis.

In 1961, in one version of the story, he impressed respected band leader Ben Branch while singing "The Very Thought Of You" by Arthur Prysock, after being snuck into Currie's Club Tropicana, and sang three nights a week with the band for the next two years - backed by Branch, Floyd Newman on alto sax, Emerson Able on tenor sax, Larry Brown on bass guitar, Eddie Jones on piano, Herbert Thomas and Herman Green on trumpets, Big Bell James on drums, and Clarence Nelson on guitar. However, in another version of the story, told by band-member and eye-witness Howard 'Bulldog' Grimes over here at the amazing blog Lost And Found: The Memphis Sound, it was thanks to the rest of the band and Mr Johnnie Currie, the club owner, and a lot of shouting in the kitchen, that Ben Branch even allowed Isaac up on stage! As it turned out, Ben had been wrong, and Isaac was a great hit, singing Brook Benton's "Just A Matter Of Time"!

Isaac also sang gospel with The Morning Stars, and doo-wop with The Ambassadors, The Teen Tones and The Missiles, played r&b with Calvin & the Swing Cats, before graduating, and his singing was so good that he had been offered many college scholarships to study vocal music. Amongst those who had encouraged Isaac at the school was Emerson Able, school band teacher and tenor sax player with Ben Branch, who is featured here at Lost And Found: The Memphis Sound, and is recovering from a recent heart attack. At one point, the story goes, Emerson actually kicked Isaac out of the school band to get him to focus more, perhaps to remind him that playing nights wit Ben Branch and himself wasn't going to be enough without an education! Manassas High School is where Isaac Hayes chose to place his historical marker, in thanks for the encouragement they gave him. He continues to support the school in many ways, including attending events during Black History Month (in the photo below Isaac is standing with Dr Linkwood Williams, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, the African-American pilots and officers of WWII)

However, in need of money, he had to turn them all down and started work full-time at the processing plant. It was only by chance that Isaac heard of an opportunity to perhaps continue in music. Sidney Kirk persuaded him to go down to Chips Moman's American Sound Studios for an audition for Chip's new Youngstown Records label.

Sir Isaac & The Doodads - Laura, We're On Our Last Go-Round (A-side) Youngstown 1962
Sir Isaac & The Doodads - Sweet Temptation (B-side) Youngstown 1962

Moman decided to record them performing Laura, We're On Our Last Go-Round by Patti Ferguson, and Sweet Temptations by Merle Travis. The band was Isaac on vocals, Sidney on piano, Ronnie Capone on drums, and Tommy Cogbill on bass, while apparently, those sweet, tempting backing singers are in fact Isaac himself on an overdub. Isaac's singing on Laura demonstrates a purity and honesty in his tenor range, while Sweet Tmeptation begins to reveal the earthiness and allure possed by his baritone voice, which would later become his trademark. Sadly, the record went nowhere at the time, but Isaac Hayes turned up nearly every evening after work to learn more about recording from Chip, and hoping to get more work, perhaps as a backing singer or saxophonist. Just before Christmas, Sidney Kirk decided to quit music and go into the Air Force. And it was ironically the loss of his partner that set Isaac Hayes on the route to success. Fanny Kirk phoned him just before New Year to see if he knew a piano player for the New Year's Eve party at The Southern Club. Getting desperate for money, Isaac found himself saying that he would play the gig:

"After I accepted it, I broke into a cold sweat ... I was scared to death. I said "What am I doing? I don't know how to play piano. They gonna kill me!"

Read what happened next here from an excerpt of Rob Bowman's Soulville USA: The Story of Stax Records...

Buy Soulsville USA. Now!

Information and photos for this post come courtesy of Rob Bowman's research, and the dedication of Scott and Preston Lauterbach at Lost And Found: The Memphis Sound. The recordings here are from a reissue by San American records (#950), of Little Rock Arkansas, where Joe Lee was sound engineer and did some work with Allen Orange in the 70s. Go over to the Soul Detective to read more about this...

Boy Meets Girl: Just Keep On Loving Me

Carla Thomas featured prominently on the Boy Meets Girl album, at a time when she was beginning to feel that she was being sidelined as an artist at Stax. After performing in London at the Bag O'Nails club in front of an impressed Paul McCartney, she was actually asked to drop out of the Stax/Volt tour of England in 1967 to perform at a civil-rights benefit in Chicago that Al Bell had double-booked! Having recorded the successful King & Queen of Soul album and Tramp with Otis Redding, she was hoping to capitalise on this. Jim Stewart promised another duet album with Otis for December 1967; yet Phil Walden remembers talking with Al Bell about an album featuring Otis with Aretha Franklin.

Al Bell found a place for Carla on Boy Meets Girl, although she is billed last, under Stax's newest female singing sensation, Mavis Staples. Nonetheless, Carla Thomas makes the most of her chance. She performs three songs in her trademark ballad style, All I Have To Do Is Dream with William Bell, with Eddie Floyd on Don't Make Me A Storyteller, and I'm Trying with Purvis Staples. She streches out into more impassioned territory with William Bell again on I Can't Stop and I Need You Woman, It's Our Time with Eddie, and particularly forcefully on It's Unbelievable with Purvis Staples. But it is perhaps with Johnnie Taylor that she reaches her best rapport, first on the ballad I've Just Been Feeling Bad, and then on today's song.

Carla Thomas matches and outdoes Johnnie Taylor on every plea to Just Keep On Loving Me. It's clear to me that she is in fact the power driving this song, with more confidence that she expresses on some of her other duets here. Ironically, in September 1975, in the dying days of Stax as a real record company, this song was released with Carla's vocals removed, in an attempt to cash in on Johnnie Taylor's renewed popularity with the disco crowd and drum up some much needed cash while the vultures swooped (this version recently featured on Stepfather of Soul, I think, but I can't remember now). It is good, but does it feel like someone is missing when he cries out for Carla halfway through? If you have that version, compare it to the original here, and decide for yourself.

Carla Thomas & Johnnie Taylor - Just Keep On Loving Me (Stax 0042) 1969

Information for this post taken from Rob Bowman's Soulsville: USA, and the Stax Site. You can buy the CD Boy Meets Girl here.

Boy Meets Girl: Love's Sweet Sensation

Summer lingers on, the sun is shining, boy meets girl, feel love's sweet sensation...



1969: Following the revelation that Atlantic Records had conned them out of ownership of their entire body of work to date, and stunned by the death of Otis Redding, and the murder of Martin Luther King in Memphis, the Stax family gathered together under the new direction of Al Bell to consider the future. Even though there had been tragedy and trickery, and even though tensions lay simmering beneath the surface, everybody equally believed in the possibility to make one new team effort, in the Stax spirit, to push ahead. A big release of new material, in a fanfare of publicity, was planned for May 1969.

The recording push of late 1968 and early 1969 produced so much astonishing music, often from previously untapped talent at the company, that it was able to push Stax to new heights. Everybody was put to work writing songs, performing, producing, in new combinations. New acts such as the Soul Children, the Emotions and the Staples Singers joined the family, while Isaac Hayes got to work on Hot Buttered Soul. A grand total of 27 new albums and 30 singles were recorded and pressed for simultaneous release, with more in the pipeline.

Boy Meets Girl was one of those albums, and was in part a response to the perceived success of that other soul giant, Motown, with duet songs. The decision to record four sides worth of Stax duets may seem slightly over-enthusiastic. Not everyone, even at Stax, believed that it would be possible to release so much and promote every artist properly. Al Bell, who personally produced the album, explained the reasoning in an interview with Rob Bowman:

"It was an attempt to take the entire roster and come up with a unique catalogue album ... then I could expose every track on the album and ... get all of those artists out there..."

Almost every permutation of male and female vocalist gets an outing. Duets were recorded with William Bell, Mavis Staples, Cleotha Staples, Purvis Staples, Johnny Taylor, Carla Thomas and Eddie Floyd. The results are remarkable. Carla Thomas matches and outdoes Johnny Taylor with every plea to Keep On Loving Me. William Bell and Mavis Staples didn't have to love us but they did, yes they did, on I Thank You. Mavis's voice soars above Eddie Floyd to dare him, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart.

Al Bell, working with Don Davis and Isaac Hayes to produce the tracks, took the artists to Muscle Shoals Sound for half of the songs. This was the first time the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett, had played on a Stax record. Eddie Hinton, Marvell Thomas and Isaac Hayes also played.

The other half of the songs were recorded at Ardent Studios, with the new line-up of the Bar-Kays. Marvell Thomas and Isaac Hayes came to record parts too. They soon would return to Ardent to come up with Hot Buttered Soul...

Today's song is Love's Sweet Sensation, a duet between Mavis Staples and William Bell. You can't help but think about the warmth of a sunny day. I always cheer up listening to this track. When William calls out that love's "like a big hurricane", listen out for Mavis' response: "ooh, windy..." The string parts (recorded at Tera Shirma Studios in Detroit by Russ Terrana Jr) add a soaring element that matches the song's sentiment, while the song never gets syrupy thanks to the clever changes of tempo that wind up the song.

William Bell & Mavis Staples - Love's Sweet Sensation ("Boy Meets Girl" Stax STS 2-2024) 1969

The predictions that the release schedule was overdone were in part justified. Boy Meets Girl, and its six singles, did not chart, like some of the other albums. But the album push did make an impression on the music industry, and the record-buying public - Stax would continue - and gave us a wealth of great music.

All of the facts in this post come from Rob Bowman's Soulsville: USA. Amazon.co.uk are selling the Boy Meets Girl CD at good price for 22 classic tracks.