When we visited you before, you mentioned that the idea that black popular music is always a reflection of how the black people feel about themselves in society, American society.

Music in general but black music in particular is a reflection of what goes on in the lives and lifestyles of the people. So after the death of Dr. King, you had now a broadening of the soul music experience, to the extent now where the writers and the artists, I suppose picked up the baton of leadership and asserted themselves more as they addressed political issues, and, and social issues. The, the, the soul was expressed in a Johnny Taylor's "I've got to love somebody's baby, 'cause somebody's somebody sure has been lovin' mine." As well as the soul was expressed then in "Say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud." Which was asserting now a political position. You heard it in, in a Norman Whitfield, "And Poppa was a Rolling Stone." A, as he recorded that on the Temptations. And many other marvelous songs that came out of that time, that addressed the social and political concerns of African American lifestyle and what we were experiencing in our lives in America.

Al Green ah, probably brought down the curtain or closed out the era, on great male soul singers in this country. I don't think we've had any of that ilk, since then. Ah, it wa-, Al was an artist that ah, that I was after ah, from, from my Stax vantage point. We had heard ah, a song on him titled "Back Up Train." And I heard that marvelous, marvelous voice, and heard all of that feeling and went looking for Al Green, and by the time I found Al Green, he was in another studio across town, in Memphis, Tennessee, and our drummer, Al Jackson, was working with Willy Mitchell, and High Records producing him. He's one of my favorite artists, second only to Otis Redding. But I don't think we had another great soul singer to come along after Al Green. When Al came, Al closed out the period.

Do you have much familiarity with the Muscle Shoals sound, that whole band of white country boys? Will you talk a little bit about that, and how or if it's a different sound than Booker T and the MGs.

We had the experience of spending an inordinate amount of time in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I found the musicians there, the rhythm section to be comparable to, in one sense, Booker T. and the MGs. In another sense I found them much more free, freer, I should say in their approach to playing. For Booker T. and the MGs were basically in addition to being studio musicians they were organized artists. And they had that kind of a chemistry going for them as artists, as well as musicians that backed up performers. But the guys in Muscle Shoals I think were a bit, a bit more relaxed and a bit freer, and, and, and I enjoyed working with them. I had the experience of working with them on the Staple Singers. And all of the material that we produced on the Staple Singers, ah the Respect Yourselves, the I'll Take you There, the Bridges Instead of Walls, and, and, and, Come Go With Me. And all of the big hits on the Staple Singers, we recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with that Muscle Shoals rhythm sound. And it just amazed me now, to see, the difference now, in Memphis where you had a, a couple of white guys and a couple of black guys, here we are in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with all white guys. And all these white guys are playing just as funky and just as soulful as this mixed group was there in Memphis which is where the MGs meant by the way, Mixed Group. Ah, and, and, and, and, as, as funky and as soulful as any all black group of musicians ah, that you'd want to hear. And, and we, we recorded with them on the Staple singers. We recorded with them on Eric Mercury. We did some Eddie Floyd sessions with them, I think even some Carla Thomas sessions with the guys there, and Atlantic Records and Gerry Wexler and all of the guys would come to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. And, and I don't know whether, I think they did, but they took some of the musicians I believe to New York, to do Aretha Franklin's date, and they did some Wilson Pickett dates with the Muscle Shoals guys. Just an incredible, incredible group of musicians. Earth, raw, authentic. A bit more polished than the guys at, at Stax, Booker T. and the MGs, but raw, and authentic. Once again ah, I guess it just goes to show that ah, ah it doesn't matter what color you are when you have soul.

And what about Hot Buttered Soul? Tell me about making that album with Isaac Hays and how it was a full album approach, and it was really one of the first of that kind.

Recording Hot Buttered Soul, or better stated, to get Isaac to record Hot Buttered Soul, was really a challenge. Ah, we had toyed around with Isaac on an album prior to that called, Presenting Isaac Hays, where we, we got Isaac into the studio to record, and I acted as engineer on the date, and I wasn't a good engineer, but we did the best we possibly could. Got Isaac to record some jazz things at that time, punky jazz things. And, and Tommy Dowd, Arif Mardian took the tapes after we had destroyed them if you will, and me being the engineer, and tried to clean them up, and, and, but, but, but we ended up with a no win, on Isaac. Ah, I had, I had been observing Isaac Hays, his, his uniqueness and look. His uniqueness in piano playing. His uniqueness as a baritone singer, and how he sounded, and I mean he had the bald head, he wore the pink shirts, and, and the blue pants, or whatever, at a time when that was unfashionable, and I thought just looking at him, you know, this guy can really be a super star. And, and I was driven to try to get him recorded and get him on the stage where the world could see this unique talented person that I was seeing. So, we, we, went about the business of putting together about 27 albums, for an album project. And during that time, I conspired if you will, with two other guys, a base player, and a piano player, ah, ah, to work with me, and help me record Isaac. 'Cause I, I had been talking to Isaac about recording, and he wasn't really that excited about going after it again. I mean, he was a little, he was a little hesitant, and reluctant. So finally, I told these guys, and, and the engineer in the studio, look, I'm going to get Isaac to work with me on putting these albums together and see if I can't get him to do some of these songs, that I know he knows, in between the takes on these albums. So I want you guys, whenever we kick off something, that you really get to working with Isaac, and let's get us something going in the studio. Well, well we did and there was one song by the time I got to Phoenix that ah, Isaac had been performing in, in a local club there in town, where I, I had heard him one occasion perform that song. And I knew he had this interesting rap on the front end. And I'd watched Isaac play around with that song, in the studio at times when he would, when he would start his rapping. And I watched the ladies react to that. I mean when Isaac would do his rapping, I mean, the ladies would swoon. He'd have their undivided attention, and of course, he knew that. But ah, ah, to, to capture that, I wasn't sure how we were going to be able to do that. But we fortunate enough, ah to get Isaac at the first take, to come in, ah __ we I've forgotten who we'd just finished, ah, ah, doing a track for at that time, but we got Isaac to start on by the time I got to Phoenix. The instructions that I had given the other guys, was just play, play, don't stop, just play, play, play, play. And I talked to the engineer and said, man let the tape roll, let it roll, let it roll, let it roll until everything stops in the studio. And of course, they got a great groove going, and Isaac's performance, it, I mean was just __ it's just in, incredible, incredible. We went on for almost 19 minutes on that. Later on in the day we were able to get him to do another song. We got Walk On Back. And, and then we were able to get a third song. And after we finished the third song, there were no more songs to do on Isaac Hays. Well, I kept walking in and out of the studio to see how much time we had. By the time we finished the third song, no matter, even though they were long songs, we still didn't have enough for an album. So I was standing outside of the ah, control room door. And, and ah, an old song that Roscoe Gordon had done, called Just a Little Bit, came to mind, and ah, I thought __ oh if we could get a groove going on that maybe we can work up this song. What came to mind then, was an expression that I had popularized in high school called hyperbolicsylabicsesquedalinistic which is a word that I invented which is an adjective that describes a person who has a tendency to over use, and abuse big words. So we went in the studio and, and, and, and talked to Isaac about this just a little bit about Roscoe Gordon, and asked him if he remembered that, he said yes. And we started playing around with it, on, on the keyboard, and working up a groove on it and everything. And what came to mind then, was the lyrics and, and they were things that I heard in school. "You're sweet phalanges, your fingers they know how to squeeze." And all of that kind of good stuff. And out of that became hyperbolicsylabicsesqudalinistic. We finished the rhythm, we finished Isaac's vocals, and course, Isaac was pleased and excited about what he had on tape and we had enough in time to complete an album. We went from there to Detroit, Michigan, and there we put on the background voices, and put on some fabulous strings and horns with some great arrangers there, where the intent was to take great European music and tie it into that Southern funk, and thus you had, Hot Buttered Soul.