VOL № E138 — June 2024
COMING SOON: Black Moses by Isaac Hayes will be the June 2024 Essentials Record of the Month. You're on the interest list and will be notified when it becomes available. Sign up to be notified by email when this album launches.
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For all the name Black Moses conjures, for all that it confers, it was not a name Isaac Hayes gave himself; that title was bestowed by a radio DJ sermonizing an intro to one of his songs. It was not a name Isaac Hayes — raised by his god-fearing grandparents in a former sharecropper’s shed after his parents died before he turned two years old — thought was even appropriate. It seemed sacrilegious to him. But that name, it meant something that even Hayes had to acknowledge. He had ascended to a plane that no Black performer before him had ever reached before. He topped the R&B charts and, eventually, the pop charts without ever having to compromise who Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. was. He had shown his people that James Brown’s “I’m Black and I’m Proud” edict was possible. He dripped in gold chains inside his album gatefolds and drove cars literally trimmed in it. Unapologetically.
Black Moses towers as Hayes’ crowning solo achievement. Its 14 songs stand as a 90-plus-minute testament to Hayes’ nonpareil greatness, songwriting ability, singing, and arranging. A monument to authenticity, Black Moses projects a self-confidence so mammoth it feels like receiving the stone tablets of swagger down from the mountain of cool.
Listening Notes Booklet by Andrew Winistorfer
Foldout Poster
LP 1 / Side A
| 1 Never Can Say Goodbye |
| 2 (They Long To Be) Close To You |
| 3 Nothing Takes The Place Of You |
| 4 Man's Temptation |
LP 1 / Side B
| 1 Never Gonna Give You Up |
| 2 Medley |
| 3 Need To Belong To Someone |
| 4 Good Love 6-9969 |
LP 2 / Side C
| 1 Medley |
| 2 For The Good Times |
| 3 I'll Never Fall In Love Again |
LP 2 / Side D
| 1 Part-Time Love |
| 2 Medley |
| 3 Going In Circles |
| 4 Prayer |
