The Daily Swarm

Washington Post:

Isaac Hayes, 65, the Oscar-winning soul singer and songwriter whose swaggering “Theme From Shaft” became a signature sound of the 1970s, died Aug. 10 at his home outside Memphis.

Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County, Tenn., sheriff’s office, said that Mr. Hayes’s wife, 2-year-old-son and a cousin returned from the grocery store shortly after noon and found Mr. Hayes lying beside a still-running treadmill in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff’s deputy who arrived at the home shortly after authorities received a 911 call performed CPR, but Mr. Hayes was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis.

The cause of death was not immediately known. Shular said family members told authorities he had been treated recently for a medical condition, which they did not specify.

Times UK:

Isaac Hayes was a seminal figure in the development of modern black American music. An architect of the Memphis soul sound, he wrote and played on many of the biggest hits on the Stax label, whose recordings in the 1960s rivalled Motown as the dominant sound of black pop. He then went on to enjoy a highly successful career as a solo performer, making a series of groundbreaking records that can now be seen as the precursors of both disco and rap.

He reached his commercial zenith in 1971 when he wrote and recorded the soundtrack of the film Shaft, which won him an Academy Award. He was the first black composer to win an Oscar for best score and the theme from the film also gave him a million-selling No 1 single.

With his shaven head, ever present dark glasses and penchant for bling, he cut a striking figure perfectly tailored for playing villainous characters on the big screen and in the 1980s he dropped out of music for an acting career. Yet his best-known role was a speaking part, when in the late 1990s he provided the voice for one of the main characters in the animated TV comedy South Park.