Isaac Hayes - Joy (1973)

Isaac was on a roll in the early 70's with his cinematic romantic funk/soul tales. Than around this this time BOOM!:I've Got So Much to Give,Barry White's debut album was unleashed on the world and all of a sudden Hayes started to seem like he was part of a movement rather than the sole purveyor of it. It was all for not as it turned out: Isaac himself was already so successful and he and Barry's style of orchestration and approch were so fundamentally different at the very bottom that both could easily exist in the same world together. In fact on this album Isaac is borrowing very heavily from Barry's cross pollination of his own sound. The psychedelic element,already being purged heavily from his sound during the Shaft period is completely gone here. Not that it's noticable:while there are changes in production and arrangement style,the musical flavors remain the same. Five songs,all between 6 and 15 minutes in lengh and featuring spoken "raps" in and around them are again the order of the day. The title song is the longest,almost 16 minutes in fact and catching onto this very deep and potent sound of what I call atmospheric funk:the sound seems to float but also be rooted at the bottom as well. But then again that is kind of how joy feels sometimes and,it's certainly one of his classic slow burning funk jams. The rest of the album is focused on slow grooves,all of them very much on the changing moods and twists in romance-both taken from the male and female perspective.

TRACKLIST

01. Joy
02. I Love You That's All
03. A Man Will Be A Man
04. The Feeling Keeps On Coming
05. I'm Gonna Make It (Without You)