History

Born August 20, 1942 in rural Covington, Tennessee and orphaned before he was two, Isaac was raised by his grandparents. They were sharecroppers, picking cotton on someone else’s farm, subject to the whims and mercies of a landowner and others who demonstrated no loyalty to, nor appreciation for, the hands responsible for their income. “I used to dream,” Isaac told Phyl Garland in 1970, “just dream about being able to have a warm bed to sleep in and a nice square meal and some decent clothes to wear.”

The family moved to Memphis before Isaac began school, but life did not get any easier. “We lived in the back of appliance stores, lived in people’s backyards. I slept in junk cars at a garage” he continues. Embarrassed by the holes in his shoes and his lack of proper clothing, he dropped out of high school to do small jobs, but music came into Isaac’s life like air and sunshine. It was all around him—in the fields when he worked, and in church, which occupied a central place in his young life. He sang at service, and it was the first place he touched a piano and organ.

After singing a Nat King Cole hit in the ninth-grade talent show, Isaac found more reason to embrace music: Beautiful girls began asking him for his autograph. Excited by the recognition and still in high school, he talked his way into Curry’s Club Tropicana, and onto the stage to croon “The Very Thought of You” during a performance by saxophonist James Moody. Impressed, the club’s proprietor gave him his first professional gig, singing with the house band three nights a week.

Isaac went on to be offered seven vocal scholarships to colleges. However, he was by this time already married and, with a child on the way, had to pursue gainful employment. While a job at a slaughter house paid the bills, Isaac continued to sing, working in clubs and hanging around recording studios. Isaac began spending a lot of time at Stax—before ever getting to work there. The record store in the studio’s lobby was a hangout for musicians, where gigs were discussed and hit records were studied—a place to network. Isaac failed two auditions at Stax before finally getting in with Floyd Newman’s band, the first step toward Isaac’s long and fruitful relationship with Stax.

Robert Gordon, Memphis 2017