11:30 p.m. Aug. 11--
If any black cats were coooler than Isaac Hayes, they didn't cross my path.
The hot buttered silky smooth singer-songwriter died suddenly Sunday at his home in Memphis. He was 65. I spoke to Hayes a few times over the years, touching on his appearances as Chef in television's "South Park" and his restaurant operations in Chicago and Memphis (both since closed). But on April 3, 1988 I spent more than an hour with Hayes at a hotel near the Atlanta (Ga.) Civic Center. He was part of a disorganized package tribute to Stax Records that included Luther Ingram, Johnnie Taylor and Rufus Thomas. They are all dead now, too.
Hayes was on the comeback trail 20 years ago. His record sales had slowed and his "Shaft" imagery was out of time. But eye to eye, I saw how soul embodies the man.
Here's an edited, up-to-date version of my time with Hayes..
Accompanied only by an imposing bodyguard-driver, Isaac Hayes swaggered into the gazebo of a hotel on the outskirts of downtown Atlanta. The barrel-chested Hayes wore a loose fitting red Gold's Gym sweatshirt and tight, mirrored sunglasses, which he never removed. His head was as smooth as a newborn's bottom and his easy baritone boomed like a full moon in Dixie.
Sir Isaac Hayes was one the most once-in-a-lifetime figures in pop music........
Dave Hoekstra has been a 
