The Isaac Hayes Movement [CD]

If some cynics chimed that Hot Buttered Soul had been a fluke, Isaac Hayes easily repeated the success of that 1969 breakthrough for symphonic soul with this 1970 masterpiece. Like its predecessor, it contains four long songs and became a massive seller, peaking at No. 8 on Billboard's pop album chart. Highlights include Hayes's soulfully simmering renditions of Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused" and the Beatles' "Something," the latter featuring the serpentine jazz violin work of John Blair. Stax Records historian Rob Bowman has called Hayes's vocal on "I Stand Accused" "his finest moment as a singer" and that song's interplay between Pat Lewis's background vocal line and Michael Toles's circular guitar figure "pure alchemical magic.