Presenting Isaac Hayes is the debut studio album by American soul musician Isaac Hayes. The album was released in 1968, by Enterprise and distributed by Atlantic Records. The LP was the first release on Stax Records' Enterprise label; Hayes had for several years served as one of Stax's key songwriters, producers, and studio musicians.
Recorded to appease Stax vice president Alvertis Isbell (Al Bell), Presenting features Hayes recording with Booker T. & the MGs members Al Jackson, Jr. and Donald "Duck" Dunn as a jazz trio. No material was prepared for the sessions, so the three musicians improvised an album's worth of material. It has thus been described as a jam session album. According to the author Christopher R. Weingarten, the record is "little more than an alcohol-fuelled jam session edited down to album format." The album was a commercial failure.
"Precious, Precious", recorded as a 19-minute jazz piece, was edited to under three minutes for release as a single. Both the 45 and the album under-performed, and Hayes would only continue his recording career after Stax lost its entire back catalog to Atlantic Records during the process of breaking away from Atlantic. The lack of material necessitated all Stax artists — Hayes included — to record albums for release, resulting in Hayes' successful and groundbreaking Hot Buttered Soul (1969).
Following Hayes' success with Hot Buttered Soul, in 1971 Black Moses and the Shaft soundtrack, Atlantic reissued Presenting Isaac Hayes under the title In the Beginning.
Critical reception In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992), Presenting Isaac Hayes is described as a "bluesy after-hours jam session".
Track listing
Personnel Isaac Hayes - vocals, piano Donald "Duck" Dunn - bass guitar Al Jackson Jr. - drums Technical Arif Mardin, Steve Cropper - mixing Alvertis Isbell - supervision Bill Kington, API Photographers - photography Loring Eutemey - cover design Stanislaw Zagórski - reissue cover design (article includes 30 images of his album covers)
References