Black Moses

Isaac Hayes is nothing if not ambitious, and this double-disc collection is a case in point. Released the same year as the breakthrough Shaft soundtrack, 1971's Black Moses melds Hayes's superior skills as an architect of progressive soul sounds with his talent as a song interpreter. Except for his smooth, boudoir-savvy "raps" - there are three within the set, acting as intros to songs about love and devotion - Hayes's own songwriting energies take a backseat to tunes by some of the preeminent pop songwriters of the '70s.

Clifton Davis's magnificent "Never Can Say Goodbye" is given loving - and arguably definitive - treatment here. In its rich majesty, Hayes's reading of Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times" provides an intriguing counterpart to Al Green's spare 1972 version of the same tune. Two Bacharach-David songs, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and "Close to You," sound not at all misplaced beside two Curtis Mayfield numbers. That's because Hayes (and his collaborator Johnny Allen) re-imagined the songs into new versions via lush, orchestral charts, so that each tune bears the team's stamp indelibly. Though full of covers, Black Moses is an Isaac Hayes record through and through, and in its continuity and smarts, one of his finest.