Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul Craft Recordings

In the late 1960s Isaac Hayes helped save Stax Records. After its considerable success earlier in the decade, the Memphis record label hit hard times that almost destroyed its modest empire. In December 1967 Otis Redding the label’s biggest act and one of the most popular R&B singers in the world was killed in a plane crash alongside most of the Bar-Kays. In April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, converting what had been a hideout and meeting place for the house musicians into a symbol of the nation’s escalating racial tensions. Meanwhile, Stax’s owners had been renegotiating the label’s contract with Atlantic Records, which had distributed nearly every Stax release; they were horrified to discover a clause that gave ownership of the entire back catalog, along with control of its second biggest act, Sam & Dave, to Atlantic. Stax had no funds and no way to get funds. One of the biggest success stories of the decade looked like it might meet an ignominious end—just another indie gobbled up by the New York giants strengthening their grasp on the market.

A one-off concept album that’s a big fat Soul-R&B gem: Craft Recordings will reissue the definitive version of one of the most ambitious, groundbreaking records in the Stax catalog: The 24-Carat Black Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth. Composed, arranged, and produced almost entirely by longtime Isaac Hayes collaborator Dale Warren, the album draws marked comparisons to the lush, transformative arrangements penned by Warren for the seminal trio of Hayes albums, Hot Buttered Soul, The Isaac Hayes Movement, and …To Be Continued.