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While nowhere near as revolutionary, mind-blowing or astoundingly great as 1969's "Hot Buttered Soul", 1971's "To Be Continued" or 1973's "Joy" this CD remains an important title in Isaac's discography. The album's high point is definitely Isaac's superb rendition of Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused" but the three other songs (especially "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" and "Something") straddle the fence between mundane and merely average. This album was by no means disastrous but it is somewhat disappointing in comparison to "Hot Buttered Soul", "Black Moses", "To Be Continued" and "Joy".
For a version of Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" repitition is again the key as something a tad closer to epic begins to arrise. There is something of a difference however as the bigger than life cinematic flavors of that album are replaced by a collection of what basically ammount to four extended soul ballads with a lot of orchestration,very much in the tradtion of classi 60's Memphis soul only with everything from the vocal harmonies to the instrumental exchanges either being repeated or slowed down some to draw out the lengh. In the almost 40 years since this album was first released there is no question in my mind that this is exactly the place where Hot Buttered Soul left off musically. The album closes off with an elongated version of "Something". The presence of the strong acid rock touches are downplayed here as well in general."I Stand Accused" consists primarily of Ike "rapping" about the relation between his good Christian upbringing and the situation the character in his song is facing-an excellent analogy if I may say so,before getting into the Jerry Butler original. "One Big Unhappy Family" speeds things up just a tad to deliver more passion and the gospel element of the music is much strong emphasized. The lush,to the point George Harrison original is transformed him into a long extended plead in which each shading of the songs moods and accents are very strong emphasized by Hayes and in many cases a lot more ideas are added to it from female backup vocals to the albums only major emphasis on psychedelia with the abstract,fuzzed out guitar solo that concludes it. Isaac Hayes's early 70's recordings may have all seemed similarly executed on the surface but,in fact they were all strong varriations on a spesific theme and each one emphasized something the album had different and new to offer.
When Isaac laid the groove on us before flowing into I Stand Accused, we had no idea what we were getting, but we knew we had received a magic moment. Then he took the Beatles song Something and orchestrated it to no end. Man, what a time.
I enjoyed it back when I bought the album in the 70's. And I still enjoy it.
there is nothing much to say: this album has none of that groove that hot buttered soul and.to be continued has whatsoever. how can man make such an unlistenable album between two masterpieces. it is overproduced and homogeneous. i recommend not to buy it if you expect to hear the groovy improvisations of hyperbolicsyllabicsesquadellamystic & ike's mood and the great sounds of phoenix. p.s. the two stars go for i stand accused, which intro is a bit soothing(and misleading)
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