From a technical standpoint, Isaac Hayes: The Black Moses of Soul has to be one of the worst music DVDs ever foisted on an unsuspecting public. The dark, grainy, indistinct picture looks like something shot with a home video camera, then copied half a dozen times. But that's nothing compared to the audio; horribly recorded and mixed (Hayes' voice is audible enough, but almost nothing else is), the tinny, virtually bass-less sound might as well have been recorded by some bootlegger with a 99-cent condenser mic. At this point in his career, the man who had co-written R&B immortals such as “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I'm Comin'” was performing long, lush versions of tunes by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (“I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself,” “The Look of Love”), Jimmy Webb (dig the 13-minute rap that precedes the nine-minute version of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”), and even the Doors (“Light My Fire”). Not that it matters; considering the manifest technical shortcomings, it's hard to tell if the 1973 Atlanta performance by Hayes and his band is any good or not. Not recommended. Aud: P. (S. Graham)
Isaac Hayes: The Black Moses of Soul
(1973) 78 min. DVD: $14.95. Good Times Entertainment (avail. from most distributors). Color cover. ISBN: 0-7662-1917-8. Volume 19, Issue 5
Isaac Hayes: The Black Moses of Soul
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