Mr. Isaac Lee Hayes was born 1942 in Tennessee and became a session singer for Stax records in the 1960s. He then started to write songs and co-writing Soul Man in 1967 with David Porter which became a huge hit for Sam and Dave.
In 1970 Issac released two albums called The Isaac Hayes Movement and To Be Continued. But it was the film Shaft that was to be Isaac’s greatest hit.
The film about a black detective called Shaft was a huge box office success and Isaac wanted to star in it. Instead he got the job of singing the theme. The film was No. 1, the album was No.1 and the single was No. 1 in the U.S. The song won two Academy Awards, one BAFTA, two Golden Globe and three Grammy Awards.
By the mid-1970s Hayes sued Stax records and Stax let him go without financial penalty. Issac was in big debt, but never the less he co purchased the basketball team Memphis Tams.
Hayes had a small 1976 comeback with a UK disco song called Disco Connection, but he did better in 1991 with a No. 1 featuring him called Chocolate Salty Balls from South Park. Isaac Hayes sadly died in 2008 from his second stroke aged only 66.