Most obituaries of the funk-soul great Issac Hayes are focusing, understandably, on his immortal, Oscar-winning "Theme From Shaft," but my favorite work of his is the epic 11-minute version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "The Look of Love" off his 1970 album ...To Be Continued. The instrumental opening is familiar to rap fans because it's been sampled so regularly over the years, most memorably by Jay-Z on the Reasonable Doubt classic "Can I Live," but it's when Hayes begins singing that the song enters the stratosphere. Here's a live performance from 1973--a scaled-down, nine-and-half-minute version.
--Ben Wasserstein