I recently read an article about Isaac Hayes in some Brit music mag, and it of course mentioned in a big way, the soundtrack from "Shaft", which featured a 19 minute song called "Do Your Thing" -- 19 minutes!! Isaac Hayes!!! Three exclamation points!!!
Well, it's 19 minutes of stink-a-roni chika-chika wah-wah guitar. BUT...the rest of the soundtrack is really good! Our family listened to it recently on a drive, (well, that term dates me...) and my son said "I can't believe we're actually not listening to this ironically!"
I haven't seen the movie, and I'm not likely to, based on some of the plot described in the liner notes. So I can't tell you how well the music fits the film, but Isaac Hayes managed to capture an urban vibe in an elegaic way. No, really. Even in the moments that are clearly cues for "man runs down the street", the background music rewards focused listening. The instrumentation is varied -- flutes! vibes! and there's a pronounced Burt Bacharach feel to some of the arrangements. "Blaxploitation" soundtracks get a bad rap because so much of them ARE derivative, and many use the "Theme from Shaft" as a template. But Haye's work in the full soundtrack is so much more accomplished than I certainly expected. Hey, I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft!
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