Isaac Hayes Dies at 65

Posted August 10, 2008, 9:47 pm in Music

Soul and funk music legend Isaac Hayes was found dead Sunday afternoon at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 65. A sheriff's deputy responded to Hayes' home after his wife found him unconscious on his bedroom floor near a treadmill that was switched on. Sheriff's deputies performed CPR until paramedics arrived. He was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead an hour later.

Hayes, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is best known for the "Theme from Shaft" which earned him a Grammy and an Oscar. "Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes."

He established the Isaac Hayes Foundation in 1993 to do philanthropic work in Africa, and was subsequently crowned king of a small community in Ghana.

A businessman who owned two restaurants and wrote a best-selling cook book, Hayes was married four times and had 12 children.