Isaac Hayes

For the American arctic explorer, see Isaac Israel Hayes Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (born August 20, 1942) is an American soul and funk singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, composer and actor. Hayes was one of the main creative forces behind southern soul music label Stax Records, for which he served as both an in-house songwriter/producer with partner David Porter durign the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s, Hayes became a recording artist, and recorded successful soul albums such as Hot Buttered Soul (1969) and Black Moses (1971) as the Stax label's premier artist. Alongside his work in popular music, Hayes is a film score composer for motion pictures. His best known work, for the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft, earned Hayes an Academy Award for Best Original Song (the first Academy Award received by an African-American in a non-acting category) and two Grammy Award. Hayes received a third Grammy for the album Black Moses. In 1992, in recognition of Hayes' humanitarian... full article at wikipedia