Word: hayeses
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Hayes' theme - for the proto-blaxploitation policier than helped yank Hollywood's depiction of African-American males from the sanctity of Sidney Poitier into the grittier image of the stud male who rules the streets with a sizzling machismo - was a cunning mix of wocka-wocka percussion, soaring violins, a...
That aural-verbal concoction would be startling enough just for a single on Vietnam-era AM radio, where the song hit the top of the pop charts. What's extraordinary is that Theme from Shaft somehow beguiled the Bel Air senior citizens who constitute the Academy membership. Hayes, a newcomer...
So when Hayes' name was read out, you could practically hear the sound of mandibles detaching throughout the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, while back at Stax Records in Memphis there must have been astonished cheers. Hayes had become the first African American to win a music Oscar (or, indeed, an Oscar...
In other endeavors, Hayes' influence was more readily apparent. Born in Covington, Tenn., 40 miles northeast of Memphis, he was working in a meatpacking plant after college when one of his songs got him hired at Stax. There he played in the house band behind most of Otis Redding's...
Producing many of the Stax hits of the '60s, Hayes and Porter helped define that studio's sound, which dispensed with the pop craftsmanship of Stax's main rival Motown Records and, taking inspiration from James Brown's mid-'60s ravers, revved up the motor of testosterone. For Sam & Dave...