(Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008)

Isaac Hayes at 1973 PUSH convention (For Bio, courtesy of Wikipedia, wwwlwikipedia.org

 From The Mid-South Tribune ONLINE and the Black Information Highway

 Posted August 10, 2008                                                      For Bio

                                   For Memorial Services Information UPDATE

           MUSIC LEGEND ISAAC HAYES DIES AT AGE 65

MEMPHIS, TN – Music legend and the first African American to receive an Academy Award for Best Original Song, Isaac Hayes died today, August 10, 2008, just ten days before 66^th birthday on August 20.

Steve Shular, a Shelby County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said that Hayes died at about 2:10 p.m. Sunday, August 10, 2008 at his home on River Edge Street. According to Shular, the singer was found by family members in the downstairs bedroom near a running treadmill. Shular stated that Hayes was either in the process of working out or getting ready to.  He reported that Hayes’ wife and his two-year-old son along with a cousin had left the house at about noon to go shopping, and upon their return found Hayes unconscious by the treadmill.  A Shelby County deputy came to the house, where CPR was performed. The fire department was also called to help administer aid to Hayes.

“No foul play was involved,” Shular said and added that Hayes was being treated for a medical condition, which is believed at this time to have led to his death. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

Hayes had been hospitalized last year with a stroke.

Hayes, best known for penning and performing “ The Theme from Shaft”, the tune that gave him the Academy Award and help put the Memphis Music genre on the international music map.

Hayes’ first broke into prominence as an artist with the “Hot Buttered Soul” LP, which is now considered a classic. “Hot Buttered Soul” was released on the Memphis-based Stax Records’ Enterprise label.  Hayes penned most of the tunes on “Hot Buttered Soul” which catapulted him to fame as the “Black Moses”. He usually performed bare-chested in an array of gold chains symbolizing slavery,  while doing what would be a precursor to ‘rapping’—though  at a slower pace in which Hayes talked smoothly and delivered messages to his audiences.

In 1972, Hayes was the star attraction in the movie “WattStax”, now a cult classic, in which Stax Records put on a benefit concert in Watts in the Los Angeles area to help restore the mostly African American community after what has gone down in civil rights history as the Watts Riots. The movie and concert also boasted other Stax luminaries as Rufus Thomas and his daughter, Carla Thomas, The Bar-Kays, Staple Singers, Booker T. & the MG’s, the Emotions, among others. The 30^th Anniversary of “WattStax” was released by Warner Brothers.

Hayes began his music career as a songwriter with partner David Porter.  Together the duo produced such soul hits as “Soul Man”, “Hold on I’m Coming”, “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby” for duo Sam & Dave,  among others in the Stax stable of artists.

Hayes, born in Covington, Tennessee,  and attended Manassas High School, one of the two oldest African American high schools in Memphis and Shelby County.  Hayes was on hand to celebrate the high school’s 100^th Anniversary in 1998.

                                                                            ###

     Story from The Mid-South Tribune and the Black Information Highway.