Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul At 50

“A revolutionary classic of soul music” – Pitchfork

To honour the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest soul records of all time, we have invited London’s finest soul band Meraki to perform the album in full from front to back, plus a few other Hayes classics thrown into the mix. Hot Buttered Soul stood as a newer, funkier phase of Southern soul, but it hinged on a sound more opulent than the most sharp-suited Motown crossover bid. The landmark album by no means invited mainstream radio play, consisting of four string-drenched epics ‘Walk On By’, ‘Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic’, ‘One Woman’ and ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’ (although its edited-down singles did both enter the top 40). Its owed a bit to a classic crossover formula: start with an easy-listening-friendly pop staple, keep the orchestral sweetness, but layer on a shining veneer of psychedelic R&B, then stretch it out with some soul-jazz vamping and nail it down with a voice that hits like a velvet sledgehammer.