Other People's Songs: You Don't Know Like I Know

Sam & Dave: You Don't Know Like I Know


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Before Chef, before Shaft, and before his 18-minute version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", Isaac Hayes was half of a potent Stax songwriting/producing duo with David Porter. Soul singers Sam & Dave were the prime beneficiary of their talents, having been gifted with classics like "Hold On, I'm Comin'", "When Something is Wrong with My Baby", and most notably "Soul Man". The first hit the duo had with Hayes & Porter was "You Don't Know Like I Know", which went to #7 on the black singles charts in March of 1966. It started a string of ten consecutive Top Twenty R&B hits for them.

In 1968 Hayes recorded his first album, which bombed. But his second album, Hot Buttered Soul (the one with the 18-minute version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix") was the first in a series of hit albums that made him a star in his own right.

Incidentally, Porter also became a recording artist, but never achieved anything approaching Hayes' success.

Late: It's Too Late

Isaac Hayes: It's Too Late

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One of the saddest songs of the 70's is Carole King's ode to lost love, It's Too Late. It was the first of three #1 hits from her enormously popular album Tapestry (I Feel the Earth Move and You've Got a Friend were the other two), and was Grammy's 1972 Record of the Year.

There'll be good times again for me and you
But we just can't stay together
Don't you feel it too
Still I'm glad for what we had
And how I once loved you.

A song so popular must have a bushel of covers, right? Right! Here's one by soul/R&B singer Isaac Hayes, recorded in 1973 at the Sahara Tahoe. Isaac knew about breakups, apparently: he married four times.