Today, Isaac Hayes resides indelibly in the mainstream American consciousness primarily for two things: the "Theme from Shaft", and his recurring role as an over-sexed school cafeteria chef on "South Park", where he essentially poked fun at his own lover-man image. As much as they've become cultural touchstones, these two things hardly epitomize the man's career or indicate the length of the shadow he cast on r&b.; Here was a guy who cut a few obscure sides and then spent the next five years of his career as a session musician and songwriter for Stax Records, plying his craft in the service of others, and who also turned out to be a ridiculously charismatic performer in his own right.
His booming baritone and sweeping Spector-squared arrangements set the tone for a whole generation of r&b; in the 1960s, while his 70s Blaxploitation soundtracks largely defined the genre with their chicken-scratch wah guitars, stabbing strings, and tough vocals. And of course he had his monologues-- long, sometimes rambling speeches that he unapologetically used to preface the meat of many of his songs. Can You Dig It? packs two discs wall-to-wall with 32 of the best tracks Hayes recorded under his own name, understandably leaving out the significant portion of his career he spent laboring for Stax, though you could certainly focus an interesting compilation on his early work backing and writing for other performers-- the guy co-wrote "Soul Man", after all.
The whole extravaganza kicks off with that familiar twittering hi-hat, joined by one of the coolest rhythm guitar parts ever, and...is it possible not to like the "Theme From Shaft"? It gets something of a novelty rap, mostly as a result of innumerable terrible karaoke performances, but this is a truly badass piece of music, heinous funk rhythms and an entire symphony orchestra all building to a casually awesome drum fill that drops you into that ultra-smooth sing-rap. "Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?" Hayes was talking about the Richard Roundtree character, but much of it applies to himself as well. A Google image search for the man reveals a gallery of way-too-cool shots of Hayes with his shaved head, perpetual sunglasses and shirtless displays of gold body hardware, but Hayes did more than his share to live up to that image in his music.
The cross-section of that music captured in this tracklisting is about as good as it gets. Highlights from Hayes' other soundtrack work-- his theme from Tough Guys is sweet 'n' nasty proto-disco with a synth bass part from another planet-- mingle with album cuts, minor hits, and a few edits of his longest tracks, including a seven-minute reduction of his epic reading of Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix". Thankfully, the compilers have left intact the entire 12 minutes of his definitive take on Bacharach/David's "Walk on By", a psychedelic funk odyssey filled with scorching fuzz guitar solos and grandiose string arrangements that's as close to perfect as any song of that length could be.
It's hard for anything to top "Walk on By", but Hayes hardly needs to worry about that when his second tier includes songs like "Do Your Thing", an essential slab of languid bongo funk, the throbbing, horn-soaked instrumental "Disco Connection", and "Hyperbolicsyllabic-sesquadelymistic", a nine-minute funk crawl capped by an out-of-this world piano solo that Public Enemy later snipped a portion of for the basis of "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos". "Joy, pt. 1" went a long way toward establishing him as a master of seductive r&b;, wrapping direct sexuality in a pillowy love song packed with flutes, strings and horns. It's actually a little jarring sitting next to the plaintive live version of the traditional gospel song "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
There are only a few places in the two-plus hours of music here where not everything works. "For the Good Times" is a little too smooth, while the five-minute monologue that opens "I Stand Accused" is practically self-parody, and boring to boot. The need to edit down a few of the longer tracks is unfortunate, but understandable (if anything they could have lopped the intro of "I Stand Accused"), and anyone who wants the full-length versions of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" or "Do Your Thing" can simply scoop up Hot-Buttered Soul or the Shaft soundtrack-- you'll want to own them anyway. Regardless, this is a phenomenal introduction to a man whose career was positively elemental both to 70s r&b; and funk and to the development of the album as a forum for stretching out and experimenting.
