Source: blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
In a freakish turn of events, Isaac Hayes, who co-stars with
Bernie Mac in the upcoming film
Soul Men, was found dead Sunday afternoon. Oscar and Grammy winner,
Isaac Hayes, 65 years old, was found dead in his Memphis home yesterday. He was a Grammy-winning musician but is probably best known for voicing the sex obsessed cook Chef on the Comedy Central cartoon
South Park. The musician and actor had a history of high blood pressure and a stroke in 2006.
1942-2008
Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.
Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.
Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff's department said.
No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement.
Hayes was a longtime songwriter and arranger for Stax Records in Memphis, playing in the studio's backup band and crafting tunes for artists such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Carla Thomas and Johnnie Taylor in the 1960s.
Among the songs he wrote for Stax artists, often with his partner David Porter, were "Hold On, I'm Comin'," "Soul Man," "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" and "B-A-B-Y."
"Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes -- the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it."
Hayes released his first solo album in 1967, and his 1969 follow-up, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a platinum hit. "Hot Buttered Soul" was notable for its lengthy, richly orchestrated covers of "Walk On By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," and became a hit on underground FM radio.
"I've lost one of my best buddies and it is not easy to reckon with," Dionne Warwick, who had a big hit with "Walk On By" in 1964, said in a statement. "Personally, my buddy will be missed for many reasons by me. He was 'family.' ...His renditions of songs that I had recorded, especially "Walk on By" -- in my opinion, 'the definitive version' -- will always be another memory each time I sing it, and the humorous side that he showed few (that I knew so well)."
In 1971, the theme from "Shaft" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and won an Academy Award for best original theme song. The song and the movie score also won Grammy awards for best original score and movie theme.
Hayes won a third Grammy for pop instrumental performance with the title track to his 1972 "Black Moses" album.
From the late 1990s through 2006, Hayes provided the voice of "Chef" for Comedy Central's raunchy animated series "South Park," as well as numerous songs.
The role introduced him to a new generation of fans, but he left after the show lampooned his own religion, the Church of Scientology.
Hayes' other acting roles included "Tough Guys," "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka" and "Hustle & Flow." He played himself in the forthcoming "Soul Men," with Samuel L. Jackson. "Soul Men" also stars Bernie Mac, who died Saturday.
Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. In a CNN interview at the time, Hayes credited his success to "adjusting and constantly evolving, expanding and trying to stay as young as I can."
The new generation of popular musicians, he said, "could use a little more substance like we had in the day."
"They're standing on our shoulders. Some of them don't realize [it] because they sample me so much," he said.
Hayes credited his role on "South Park" with expanding his fan base, and said that he had almost passed on the job.
"I started to walk out. I thought it was a Disney thing. I [had] never heard of this thing," he said. But his agent persuaded him to tape some episodes.
"Toward the opening I started having trepidations -- 'Oh my god, what have I done? I've ruined my career.' But when it aired, the ratings went through the roof," he said.
Biography---------------------------------------------
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American soul and funk singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, composer, and actor. Hayes was one of the main creative forces behind southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served as both an in-house songwriter and producer with partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s, Hayes became a recording artist, and recorded successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971) as the Stax label's premier artist.
Alongside his work in popular music, Hayes was a film score composer for motion pictures. His best known work, for the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, earned Hayes an Academy Award for Best Original Song (the first Academy Award received by an African-American in a non-acting category) and two Grammy Awards. He received a third Grammy for the album Black Moses.
In 1992, in recognition of his humanitarian work, he was crowned an honorary king of Ghana's Ada district. From 1997 to 2006, he provided the voice for the character "Chef" on the Comedy Central animated TV series South Park.
Hayes was found unconscious in his home located just east of Memphis, Tennessee on August 10, 2008 as reported by the Shelby County, Tennessee Sheriff's Department. A Shelby County Sheriff's deputy responded to Hayes' home after his wife found him on the floor near a still-running treadmill. Hayes was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead at 2:08pm.
Hayes was born in Covington, Tennessee, the second-born child of Isaac Sr. and Eula Hayes, but after their deaths was raised by his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Willie Wade, Sr. The child of a poor family, he grew up picking cotton in Covington. He dropped out of high school, only to be encouraged later by his former high school teachers at Manassas High to get his diploma, which he earned at the age of 21. He began singing at the age of five at his local church, and, soon after, he taught himself to play the piano, electronic organ, flute and saxophone.
Stax Records and Shaft
Hayes began his recording career in the early 1960s, as a session player for various acts of the Memphis-based Stax Records. He later wrote a string of hit songs with songwriting partner David Porter, including "You Don't Know Like I Know", "Soul Man", "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", and "Hold On I'm Comin" for Sam and Dave. Hayes, Porter and Stax studio band Booker T. & the MGs served as the main production team for much of the label's output during the early and mid-1960s. In 1967, Hayes released his debut album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, a jazzy, largely improvised effort that was commercially unsuccessful.
His next album was Hot Buttered Soul, which was released in 1969 after Stax had gone through a major upheaval. The label had lost its largest star, Otis Redding, in a plane crash in December of 1967. Stax lost all of its back catalog to Atlantic Records in May of 1968. As a result, Stax executive vice president Al Bell called for 27 new albums to be completed in mid-1969; Hot Buttered Soul, was the most successful of these releases. This album is noted for Hayes' image (shaved head, gold jewelry, sun glasses, etc) and his distinct sound (extended orchestral songs, heavy on organs, horns, and guitars, deep bass vocals, etc). Also on the album, Hayes re-interprets "Walk On By" (which had been made famous by Dionne Warwick) into a twelve-minute exploration. "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" starts with an eight-minute long monologue before breaking into song, and the lone original number, the funky "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" runs nearly ten minutes, a significant break from the standard three minute soul/pop songs.
"Walk On By" would be the first of many times Hayes would take a Burt Bacharach standard, generally made famous as three minute pop songs by Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield, and transform it into an soulful, lengthy and almost gospel number.
In 1970, Hayes released two albums, The Isaac Hayes Movement and To Be Continued. The former stuck to the four song template of his previous album. Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused" begins with a trademark spoken word monologue, and Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" is re-worked. The latter spawned the classic, "The Look Of Love," another Bacharach song transformed into an eleven-minute epic of lush orchestral rhythm (mid-way it breaks into a rhythm guitar jam for a couple of minutes before suddenly resuming the slow love song). An edited three-minute version was issued as a single. The album also featured the instrumental "Ike's Mood," which segued into his own version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." Hayes released a Christmas single, "The Mistletoe and Me" (with "Winter Snow" as a B-side).
South Park's "Chef"
During the late-1990s, Hayes became popular as the voice of Chef on the Comedy Central series South Park. Chef was a soul-singing cafeteria worker at the South Park kids' school. A song from the series performed by Chef, "Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)", received some international radio airplay in 1999. It reached number-one on the UK singles chart and also on the Irish singles chart. The track also appeared on the album Chef Aid: The South Park Album in 1998.
Scientology episode
In the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet", a satire and expose of Scientology which aired on November 16, 2005, Hayes did not appear in his role as Chef. While appearing on the Opie and Anthony radio show about a month after the episode aired, Hayes was asked, "What did you think about when Matt and Trey did that episode on Scientology?" He replied (in a noticeably calm, casual manner), "One thing about Matt and Trey, they lampoon everybody, and if you take that serious, I'll sell you the Brooklyn bridge for two dollars. That's what they do."
In an interview for The A.V. Club on January 4, 2006, Hayes was again asked about the episode. Hayes said that he told the creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, "Guys, you have it all wrong. We're not like that. I know that’s your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know?" He then told them to take a couple of Scientology courses to understand what they do. In the interview, Hayes defended South Park's style of controversial humor, noting that he was not pleased with the show's treatment of Scientology, but conceding that he "understands what Matt and Trey are doing."
Stroke
On March 20, 2006, Roger Friedman of Fox News reported that Hayes had suffered a stroke in January. Hayes spokeswoman Amy Harnell denied that Hayes had had a stroke but on October 26, 2006 Hayes himself confirmed that he did.
Departure
On March 13, 2006, a statement was issued in Hayes' name, indicating that he was asking to be released from his contract with Comedy Central, citing recent episodes which satirized religious beliefs as being intolerant. "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," he was quoted in a press statement. The statement, however, did not directly mention Scientology. A response from Stone said that Hayes' complaints stemmed from the show's criticism of Scientology and that he "has no problem – and he's cashed plenty of checks – with our show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews." Stone adds, "[We] never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." Stone and Parker agreed to release Hayes from his contract per his request.
On March 20, 2006, Roger Friedman of Fox News reported having been told that the March 13th statement was made in Hayes' name, but not by Hayes himself. He wrote: "Isaac Hayes did not quit South Park. My sources say that someone quit it for him. ... Friends in Memphis tell me that Hayes did not issue any statements on his own about South Park. They are mystified."
On January 24, 2007, the New York Post reported that Hayes had told their reporter that "They didn’t pay me enough" and "They weren’t that nice."
The South Park season 10 premiere (aired March 22, 2006) featured "The Return of Chef," a thinly veiled telling of the affair from Parker and Stone's point of view. Using sound clips from past episodes, it depicts Chef as having been brainwashed and urges viewers (via Kyle talking to the town) to "remember Chef as the jolly old guy who always broke into song" and not to blame Chef for his defection, but rather, as Kyle stated, "be mad at that fruity little club for scrambling his brains."
Death
On August 10, 2008, Hayes' wife found him on the floor near a treadmill inside his home located just east of Memphis, Tennessee. A Shelby County, Tennessee sheriff's deputy responded to Hayes' home. He was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, where he was pronounced dead at 2:08pm, at the age of 65. The cause of death was not immediately known, though the stroke he suffered in 2006 is considered a factor. At the time of his death, he was preparing his first new studio album since 1995.
