The beloved Isaac Hayes came from some pretty meager beginnings. As a young boy he dreamed of sleeping in a warm bed, and having a nice square meal, with decent clothes to wear. At the tender age of 11, he even had to get special permission from his school principal to take off days in order to go out to work to help his family in a line of work that was very interesting.

His Odd Job

Isaac Hayes had a job picking cotton. Yep, you read that correctly. Before he became THE Isaac Hayes, ‘the hot buttered soul God’ by way of Memphis, he was a cotton picker. Now, of course many of us can relate to having ancestors who picked cotton, so in that respect it wasn’t odd…but it was a tad odd in Hayes’ case, because the era in which he was picking cotton for a living, it was no longer the ‘most common’ job to have.

Hayes worked in the cotton fields because he had to…however, he was never really focused on picking cotton. in a prior ebony interview he revealed several interesting things about his cotton-picking days, including that he would daydream on the job about this one girl he was crushin’ on, who also happened to be the daughter of the family he was picking cotton for. Hayes said she didn’t really pay him much attention until AFTER she found out he could sing. But check out how Hayes handled the “girl of his dreams” after he started gaining a lil’ singing popularity around his way…

“I remember I had a crush on this chick whose family I used to pick (cotton) for, a black family. She used to pay off to us when we’d bring out cotton as that could to get her attention, since the most successful man is always on top, no matter what social situation he’s operating in. Well, I was hung-up on this chick and so busy day-dreaming that I wasn’t picking much cotton. Then this wine-head friend said, ‘I tell you what you do. You sing. You’ve got a good voice and one of these days you’re gonna be a big man, a big star. The next time you sing at school, when you get to a certain part, you think about his girl and fall down on your knees and sing like you’re talking about her.'”

Isaac followed through to the point where his fame spread out from the school and, as the wino had anticipated, the girl he’d sought came running after him. “I had the pleasure,” Isaac remembers, “of turning to her and then looking the other way…though I was jivin’.” [Ebony Magazine]

After Hayes “looked the other way” he was soon a senior in high school, about to get married and had a baby on the way. So, I guess you can say he didn’t look completely away from the stronghold that the ladies had on him and his newfound fame back then.

Hayes took care of his responsibilities, but missed opportunities to take advantage of the seven college scholarships he was offered for his excellence in music. Therefore, he did the next best thing – he hustled his way through life, by doing music gigs all around town. Fortunately for us soul music lovers, Hayes never stopped grinding, and eventually earned a nice spot at the top of Stax Records roster…the rest is history.

Typically, we commend folks for furthering their education, but not in this case…nuh-uh. Words can’t express how grateful we are that Isaac Hayes decided to turn down those college scholarships, because if he wouldn’t have, we probably would have never gotten to experience the greatness of his soulful creations that still feed our souls to this day.

Mr. Hayes is no longer with us, but he will never be forgotten, his music is way too powerful for that to ever happen.