Isaac Hayes...Perhaps there has been no one performer who has consistently entertained me so thoroughly in my 46 years than the late Isaac Hayes...I remember the first time I really became conscious of him -- it was either that Academy Awards ceremony performance of the theme from "Shaft" (I was about 10!), or watching "Shaft" in a rerun on TV (again, remember I'm a little caucasian from suburban Trenton, NJ)...I remember bugging my mother to take me to this record store in Center City Philadelphia (could it have been the legendary Record Museum?) to buy the "Shaft" soundtrack album not much long after that (around 1974-1975)...I remember being blown away by his appearances as "Gandolph Fitch" in three episodes of "The Rockford Files" in the 1970s (and subsequent reruns throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s)...I remember listening for his songs on Hy Lit's radio shows in Trenton and Philadelphia...And I remember finally getting to see him perform live, first at the Academy of Music in the mid-1980s, then a few more times at the Mann Music Center and the Robin Hood Dell East in the '90s...I remember trekking to Plastic Fantastic (first in Bryn Mawr and then in Ardmore) throughout the '80s and '90s to buy vintage copies of his albums (finding a "first edition" of "Black Moses" with all the fold-outs intact was a highlight)...I remember a concert in Philadelphia in the late 1990s when he did an unbelievable, several-minutes long medley of his covers of Burt Bachrach/Hal David songs that made me look in vain for years for a recording...I remember his immediate next song in that show, a several-minutes long version of his hit record for Dionne Warwick, "Deja Vu," that forced me to go out and track down that album after ths show (hard to believe -- written by Hayes, sung by Warwick, produced by Barry Manilow -- believe it or not!)...The last time I got to see him perform live was two weeks before our wedding, when I took my lovely bride (then bride-to-be) to see him at the Mann Music Center in August 2002...It was a hot, humid night, it had rained, and his opening act, Roberta Flack, had complained throughout her set about the heat and humidity...Then she left the stage, Isaac Hayes came out looking cooler than a cucumber, and performed for two hours without ever mentioning the weather!...We had been looking forward to seeing him again this coming Friday night at the Mann Music Center, when we heard the sad news of his passing yesterday evening...I loved his music, and I enjoyed his acting, and his spirit...I'm listening to him now on my computer...Rest in Peace, Mr. Hayes...you will be missed, but I'll always remember!
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