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Released 2002

Black Moses was Isaac Hayes' second double-LP in a year at the time of its release, and was well-received by American fans -- in the wake of Shaft, 95 minutes of Isaac Hayes was a good idea. It was always a tougher sell in Europe, however, where double-LPs were always a major issue because of that continent's higher retail prices. The German ZYX label, which previously remastered the Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog, remastered this classic release by reducing it to a single CD totalling 48 minutes of music, eliminating the various "Ike's Raps" and related tracks and reshuffling the order of certain songs. Depending upon how one feels about the editing job, the results are either awesome or frustrating -- awesome is the sound texture which, off of a 24-bit master, is about as close and vivid as anything Memphis-based soul ever heard, and gives songs like "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "(They Long to Be) Close to You" even more of a soaring, gripping quality than they ever had. On the other hand, the overall release is reduced in scope by the editing of the work. To be fair, the 48 minutes of material here are legitimately the highlights of the double album, so that's not an issue, and the songs sound extraordinary. There's also a CD-ROM track on the history of Stax Records that's identical to the one on the remastered Shaft CD, and which overrides the music portion of the disc on computer playback (one must click on "Exit"). There is an insert booklet with annotation about Hayes and Stax but no account of what the precise decisions in editing down this album involved. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

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