Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (33 1/3) by Christopher R. Weingarten

Hayes would begin a fruitful partnership with co-writer David Porter that would produce more than 200 songs for Carla and Rufus Thomas, Johnny Taylor and Sam & Dave — many of them written while Hayes was still supporting himself by working in a slaughterhouse. To get a physical element in Sam & Dave tracks like “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” Hayes and Porter would raise the key of the track until Sam Moore would be forced to sing uncomfortably out of his range. Hayes was responsible for bringing a funkier edge to Stax, co-writing the deadly “Hold On! I’m Coming” as well as “Soul Man,” a track that was overtly inspired by the black-consciousness movement and recorded a year before James Brown said it loud.Having seen “soul” scrawled on buildings in Detroit and hearing the phrase “soul brother” become more popular every day, Hayes wrote the song to be a proud, pro-black anthem.
    But things felt different after King was assassinated. Hayes’ prolific nature took a dive, and he said it took him a year to recapture what he once had. Still angry over King’s death, he focused on making sure that Stax hired more African-American employees, including its first black secretary. With help from a banker friend, Hayes formed the Black Knights, a group whose purpose was to “tug at the apron strings of consciousness,” bringing attention to Memphis’ problems with job discrimination and police brutality.
    Meanwhile, Stax’s distributor, Atlantic Records, had been sold. Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler dropped a bombshell on Jim Stewart about the fine print in their contract: By the way, Warner Brothers now owns all your records, all your masters, all these unreleased tapes and, oh yeah, Sam & Dave too. This was a sizable blow, since Sam & Dave were Stax’s most successful act to date next to Otis Redding — who had died in a plane crash in December 1967.
    Left with nothing but the as-yet-unrecorded music of a handful of artists who were under contract, Stax moved forward a year later with a blitzkrieg of releases. In May 1969, Stax pulled the improbable business stunt of releasing 27 singles and 27 albums simultaneously. The label flew more than 200 journalists toMemphis for an immense press summit at the Holiday Inn Rivermont, where Stax unleashed a massive new catalog to replace the one it had just lost. Every Stax artist was represented. But the record with the least pressure to move units ended up changing music forever.
    Stax executive vice president Al Bell had wanted a reluctant Isaac Hayes to produce a solo record for the 27-album push. Hayes’ last album, 1967’s
Presenting Isaac Hayes
, was little more than an alcohol-fueled jam session that had been edited to album format. It tanked, and Hayes vowed to never do another album unless Stax granted him complete creative control. Hayes was given a lot of leeway as one of Stax’s head songwriters, but suits were still suits. Jim Stewart was obsessed with keeping things simple and accessible. He would dissuade Hayes from using minor chords in any song he produced for Stax. On the occasions when Hayes would ask Stewart to record him, Stewart would decline, telling Hayes that his voice was too pretty.
    But with 26 other albums for Stax to worry about, Bell granted Hayes the freedom to make whatever type of record he wanted. “I didn’t give a damn if it didn’t sell because I was going for the true artistic side . . . I had an opportunity to express myself no holds barred, no restrictions, and that’s why I did it.” 63 Compare Hayes’ approach to that of Hank Shocklee, who said about
Nation of Millions
, “We didn’t go in there tryin’ to make a record that an A&R person had to like. Wedidn’t care.” 64 In 1969, this felt like a wild luxury, but after the release and subsequent success of Hayes’
Hot Buttered Soul
, groups like Public Enemy could treat creative freedom as an ultimatum, an absolute imperative.
    Hayes couldn’t fit everything he