THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT... ISAAC HAYES RIP

For most people of my generation, Isaac Hayes is the guy who played Chef in South Park and sang about his chocolate salty balls. Sadly, he's also the guy who seemingly couldn't take jokes about Scientology and quit the show because of it, amongst various rumours about exactly who was making his decisions for him. That was pretty much the last thing he did that hit the headlines, so it's a shame they were mostly negative, with accusations of hypocrisy from the show's creators, as he'd been happy to make fun of other religions, but drew the line when it came to his own.

But Ike won't be remembered for that in years to come, he'll be remembered as one of the greatest musicians ever to walk this earth, with his output from the late 60s to the late 70s breaking new ground for black culture. Even if you only know Theme From Shaft, you can appreciate just how incredible his talents were, as it's a song that shatters all kinds of boundaries and defies all kinds of conventions for the way it uses orchestration in the lengthy and famous intro.

The Shaft soundtrack was an incredible achievement, arguably making the film more famous and important than it actually deserved on its own merits, but his greatest work was probably the album Hot Buttered Soul, which demonstrated his ability to take pop songs and turn them into funk-soul epics. The album starts with Walk On By, lasting over 12 minutes and incorporating more great pop hooks than most artists can manage in their whole careers.

Across the next four or five albums, Ike proved himself time and time again to be a genius arranger and composer, even if many of his most famous tracks were covers. Along with David Porter, he co-wrote and performed on so many of Stax Records' biggest hits (like Soul Man, for example), and his legacy is an incredible one, even if his later work didn't match up to his golden years. Ike's gone, but he won't be forgotten.