Hayes and Confused

Isaac Hayes is a classy guy. This became apparent when I once picked up the phone and he was on the other end, making a polite call that most celebrities wouldn't even bother handing over to their personal assistant. I'm also reminded of this whenever I see Hayes in concert-and his Saturday-night show at the Atlantic City Sands' Copa Room is no exception.

Unlike other hectoring acts, Hayes always politely puts aside one moment onstage to discuss all the topics that currently have him concerned. At this show, Hayes is chatting it up after the opening number. "I've been a member of the Church of Scientology for 12 years," he starts, and notes that he's left pamphlets outside for anybody who's interested. Hayes is also concerned about everybody's kidneys-"We lost B.W."-and encourages us to "leave that KFC alone."

This is connected to how the black man continues to have an unacceptably short life expectancy. Hayes got that last fun fact from CNN, but he never gets partisan about his concerns. I've never seen the guy treat important topics as a left or right issue. He's respectful to everyone, but that's not the only reason that he wins over his crowd. Anything from the voice of Isaac Hayes sounds important and compelling.

I don't even worry about being insulted as Hayes starts setting up his next number. He begins by announcing that he never expected to perform this one after the 1970s, "but I'd be remiss if I didn't perform it now." I'm hoping that Rice, Bush and Rumsfeld have inspired him to dig up the title theme from Three Tough Guys. Instead, Hayes tips his hand by solemnly intoning, "If the world had windows, I truly believe they'd be covered in tears from above."

"The Windows of the World" isn't a Hayes standard, but it's one of the many classic covers he's devised from the catalog of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. A lot of people here probably thought they'd never hear him perform it live. It's a soulful antiwar meditation, and it nicely sets up the earthier spirituality of "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" from Hot Buttered Soul.

The night will provide plenty of opportunities for Hayes to prove he's a psych/prog/heavy metal legend, but there's no better calling card than this. It's not the Bar-Kays backing him up, but you can tell that all the best musicians want to work with Isaac. This allows him to be the rare touring soul legend who doesn't look lazy when he walks off the stage and hands the show over to his sidemen-as on an epic delivery of "Walk on By."

This older crowd of Philly soulsters wants to hear that 12-minute funky percussion breakdown. In that same spirit, Hayes wisely makes no assumptions when he returns to the stage. "'Hello, children,'" he intones, before adding, "Y'all hip to that?"

Hayes then explains that he does some work on a tv show called South Park, and he hopes the audience will have a good sense of humor while he does a song called "Chocolate Salty Balls." The band still delivers like it's their sole shot at entering Bar-Kays Heaven. It's even kind of charming that Hayes needs a lyric sheet. South Park is just a day job, you know.

The big climax is "Theme From Shaft," of course, and Hayes stumbles over the first line. Big deal. That one was probably a day job, too. Hayes certainly won't be performing it when he gets inducted later this year at the Songwriters Hall of Fame with old partner David Porter-with whom he wrote "Soul Man," "B-A-B-Y" and about 30 other standards that most people think simply emerged from some primordial ooze.

That's in contrast to the cerebral ooze, which brings us to the next week's other deep thinker-in a spiritual but soulless way. Isaac Hayes can sing about the medulla oblongata and make it sound funky. Tori Amos can sing of "Original Sinsuality" on her new CD, cross her arms to show off her cleavage on the cover, yet still lack any sense of human warmth.

Of course, I say that as someone who hasn't been waiting at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square since 9 a.m. to see Tori answer some questions and autograph up to two items-meaning a copy of her new CD The Beekeeper or her new book Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, one of which has to have been bought from the store today.

The idiocy of Amos is probably best summed up in the Beekeeper press kit, where she starts by complaining about how "Jesus' teachings are being hijacked and manipulated by politicians." By the final page, however, Tori is pontificating about how her years of "research"-aka "hanging out at the spirituality section of Barnes & Nobles"-led to the point where her songwriting became "taking dictation."

Can you believe those dopey politicians who can't respect how Tori has the real hook-up? And yet, she doesn't sound divinely inspired. Tori will actually be speaking in the same measured tones that you usually hear from a porn star laboring not to sound like a ditz. The long pauses still can't keep Tori from explaining to her adoring audience that she brought in a gospel choir on The Beekeeper so she could get "into the soul." She says this with a cute little movement to demonstrate the quaintness of them black folk.

She'll later sport the same smirk when invoking the King James Bible that those silly gospel singers take so seriously. Tori, of course, is famous for being the kind of gal who dismisses lazy Christians while discussing the importance of faeries. She also informs us tonight that she's probably drawn to water because she's a fire sign. That's why a lot of her pronouncements sound worthy of the Firesign Theatre.

Tori gets competition from her laughable fans, though. The evening's first question is, "In your chapter 'The Journey Into Motherhood,' you chose the Lioness as your archetype, and not the Goddess-how did you choose that?" Tori's answer gets kind of pretentious. She's the kind of woman who only gets self-deprecating when discussing how she does crazy things like drive her daughter around in a Saab.

It'll take a few more questions before I remember-literally, right there-why all this psychobabble mumbo jumbo sounds so familiar. It's the same kind of channeling crap that Amos spouted while promoting her album of cover tunes back in 2001. That was particularly lame, since it was during a low point in her career where everyone knew Tori was saving up her new songs while cranking out something to finish out her Atlantic Records contract.

Sure enough, Strange Little Girls would be her last record for the label. After that, anyone who takes Tori seriously can't really goof on, say, a Scientologist. Not that I mind pretension or spirituality in pop music. It's just that Isaac Hayes can do it with style and ambition. Battlefield Earth was a pretty cool old-fashioned sci-fi film, too-although I don't know how the hell Forest Whitaker ended up in it. At least Isaac gets to be in Return to Sleepaway Camp. You can't tell me that isn't good karma at work.