Isaac Hayes

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Date of Birth : Aug 20th 1942

American Grammy Award and Academy Award winning soul and funk singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger, 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 and later as its premier recording artist.

In 1992, Hayes was crowned an honorary king of Ghana’s Ada district thanks to his humanitarian deeds. From 1997 to 2006, he provided the voice for “Chef”, a singing ladies’ man and elementary school cook, on the animated sitcom South Park.

Isaac Lee Hayes was the second-born child of Isaac Sr. and Eula Hayes, but after their deaths was raised by his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Willie Wade Sr. The child of a poor family, he grew up picking cotton in Covington, Tennessee. He dropped out of high school, only to be encouraged later by his former high school teachers at Manassas High to get his diploma. He earned his diploma at the age of 21. He began singing at the age of five at his local church. Soon after, he taught himself how to play the piano, electronic organ, flute, and saxophone.

In 1972 Hayes would record the theme tune for the TV series The Men and enjoy a hit single (with “Type Thang” as a B-side), and release several other singles such as “Feel Like Making Love”, “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want To Be Right)”, and “Rolling Down A Mountainside”. Although these songs never made it to an album, Fantasy Records would later collect them after buying out Stax and release these and other songs as a “new” album Hotbed in 1978. Stax themselves would re-release Hayes’ debut album this year with the new title In The Beginning.