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Aug - Sep 2008
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The News, Get Hot
He is best known, of course, for the Theme from Shaft, a funk masterpiece that stands up even till today. It would be an injustice if the man was to be reduced to the cartoon cool of Shaft, the kind of black grooviness which lets white people think that Samuel L Jackson is a proprietor of übercoolness. It was cool that the man shaved his head when the Afro was fashionable; his baritone was cool; it was cool how he introduces the live version of The Look Of Love with the words: “We're dealing with love now on a more personal basis”; it was cool that on his first recording as a session musician, he helped lift Otis Redding’s version of Try A Little Tenderness with his brilliant keyboard arrangements; it was cool that he’d take white bread songs and turned them into soul classics – while borrowing liberally from psychedelic rock. Hayes was an innovator, being to soul, at last for some time, what Miles Davis was to jazz (for a long time). In his later years, Hayes forfeited some cool factor with his Scientology capers. But this is not how we should remember him. Nor should he be remembered as the chef with black, salty balls. He should be remembered as the Black Moses who launched a line of bona fide classics by fulfilling the promise made in the title of his second album: the creation of Hot Buttered Soul.
Billboard.com writes that the nine-track set "blends live instrumentation,
scratching, and samples for a sound reminiscent of the rapper's work in A
Tribe Called Quest." The record open with "Shaka", which matches
excerpts from a speech from Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama
with a "guitar-tinged beat." There's "Fight/Love", wherein the Tipster--
alongside Raphael Saadiq-- recounts the stories of a young lady going
through a bad relationship and a young soldier in Iraq. Norah Jones appears
on "Life Is Better", which finds Q-Tip paying homage to several of his
favorite hip hoppers.
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© Beta Music 2008
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Isaac
Hayes dies American funk-soul legend and Academy
Award-award winning musician Isaac Hayes was found dead Sunday Aug 10 at his
home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 65 years. Hayes was discovered at about
1:00 pm (1800 GMT) collapsed on the floor of a bedroom in his home next to a
treadmill that was still running. Hayes suffered a stroke in early 2006.
Q-Tip
releases new album in nine years It's been nearly a decade
since A Tribe Called Quest MC Q-Tip dropped his solo debut, Amplified.
Since that 1999 album, the rapper has been discussing the follow-up in a
series of confusing communications. According to a Billboard.com
report, the long wait for something new from the one they call the Abstract
is nearly over. Universal Motown will issue The Renaissance this
fall. An October 14 release date is possible. 
Silver
Jews Documentary Coming to DVD In 2006, filmmaker
Michael Tully followed country indie rockers Silver Jews around the world.
That was the band's first-ever tour, as David Berman (right) is known
to be notoriously performance-indifferent. The result is Silver Jew,
the documentary that premiered at SXSW 2007 and has been making the festival
rounds ever since.
Byrne
and Eno announce new album David Byrne and Brian Eno
have finally unveiled the details of their follow-up to My Life in the
Bush of Ghosts, 27 years in the making. The "electronic gospel" album is
called Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, and the duo will
self-release it via everythingthathappens.com.
Wolfmother
split by tensions One of
Australia's most successful rock exports, the Grammy-winning trio Wolfmother,
has been torn apart by "longstanding frictions," according to a statement
published on the group's Web site recently. Bass/keyboard player Chris Ross
and drummer Myles Heskett have resigned, while singer/guitarist Andrew
Stockdale plans to find other musicians and begin making a new Wolfmother
album. "Please understand that in spite of their best efforts over a
long period of time, they just could not find a harmonious way to work
together," the statement announced. The trio's self-titled debut
album, released in 2006, sold more than 500,000 copies in the United States,
powered by radio airplay for the songs "Woman" and "Joker and the Thief."
The group won a Grammy in the hard rock category last year, becoming the
first Australian band to pick up the music industry's top honors since Men
at Work in 1983. However, all was evidently not well behind the scenes.
According to the statement, Ross decided he would quit the band because of
"irreconcilable personal and music differences" following a show in the
eastern Australian town of Byron Bay on Sunday. Heskett also decided to
leave rather than continuing as part of a changed lineup.
