Who is Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes was an incredibly gifted singer. In 1968, Hayes released his debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, a jazzy, largely improvised effort that was commercially unsuccessful. Isaac Hayes, who has died aged 65, earned massive international acclaim and a niche in the record books from writing the Oscar-winning theme for the blaxploitation genre hit movie Shaft in 1971.

Isaac Hayes started as an anonymous session keyboardist at Stax/Volt, then grew into a hit songwriter (with David Porter) for Sam & Dave, and finally came into his own as a top-selling soul/funk innovator. Isaac Hayes gained success in the '60s as an R&B songwriter, then turned to performing for equal success, especially in the early 1970s.

In 1995, newly signed to Virgin Records (via its Pointblank label), Hayes took a typically bold step by simultaneously issuing two new CDs: Raw And Refined, by the Isaac Hayes Movement, was a set of newly recorded and old instrumental tracks, some dating back a quarter-century to the Stax era; while Branded was a lavishly arranged set of newly recorded tracks, including one with David Porter. Isaac Hayes was crowned a chief in Ghana for his humanitarian work and economic efforts on that country's behalf.