Isaac Hayes “…to be Continued”

I picked up this record recently—I’d seen it before, but thought it was an Isaac Hayes jigsaw puzzle. Just kidding. The cover is made to look like a puzzle that hasn’t been completed (pieces missing), while the back is the finished version. It came out in 1970, a year before the “Shaft” soundtrack record that everyone has. It starts out with a quiet monologue, very atmospheric (there are crickets chirping), that sounds like it could have inspired Barry White. Then, my favorite song on the record, “Our Day Will Come”—which I didn’t recognize at first, this is such a super dramatic version of it. Issac Hayes does not hold back on the drama. This song was recorded by a lot of people—I looked it up and got sidetracked. It was recorded by everyone from Ruby & the Romantics to the version that played at your wedding. I haven’t heard them all, but I’m guessing this one is right up there. Next, there’s an 11 minute version of “The Look of Love,” another song I love. I grew up in a time with Burt Bacharach songs playing all the time, it seemed like, and I’m still fond of those songs, but I like the Isaac Hayes versions of Bacharach/David songs as much as anyone’s.

Side two starts out with “Ike’s Mood,” which then runs into a 9 minute version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”—one of the most recorded songs of all time. It’s funny, this record has only two vinyl, song division grooves in it, one on each side—so it’s like a four song album! The length of the songs kind of make it radio-unfriendly, I suppose, though of course they’d release, shortened, single versions of songs. I wonder if there were, like, late-night, soul stations in Memphis who would play the long versions? I was 10 years old at this time, which would have been more or less the time I went around with a little, plastic transistor AM radio. The music station I could get in was CKLW out of Detroit, or Windsor, a top 40 station that played a lot of Motown. I remember the jingle “CKLW—the Motor City!”—and I remember it being very pop oriented, short, energetic songs, though it was also the first place I heard The Temptations “Ball of Confusion,” which felt epic, but was actually only four minutes long (I bought the 45, and this was also 1970). Anyway, I’ll have to try to look into what radio stations were playing what—like the long versions of these songs—in the early Seventies. I don’t know where you’d hear this record. You’ll hear it, now, in my apartment, if you come over on a date (that is, if I ever start dating again), because this has got to be the ultimate make-out record.