Visiting the official Isaac Hayes site right now is a fairly spooky thing. As of this moment (2:28 am on Monday, August 11), the site not only hasn't been edited to reflect ex-Chef's death, but just one click beyond the opening splash page defaults to a smiling pop-up photo of Hayes with Samuel Jackson and . . . Bernie Mac.

The group shot isn't completely random: Hayes appears as himself in the upcoming comedy Soul Men, which stars Mac and Jackson. But of course, the 50-year-old Mac died on Saturday due to complications from a pnuemonia, one day before Hayes was pronounced dead in Memphis. We are not superstitious crazies, but the visual is fairly jarring. Indubitably, moreso to Samuel Jackson.

Click to enlarge

UPDATED, 08/12

IsaacHayes.com has taken down this image; it's not even in the site's photo section anymore.

PREVIOUSLY
Ah Crap, Isaac Hayes Died
Father Figures: Goodbye to Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes Dies: A Recent Conversation With Black Moses

Isaac Hayes died Sunday, August 10, ten days shy of his 66th birthday.

He was a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The the first non-acting African-American to win an Oscar, and a threetime Grammy winner. As much as anyone, Isaac Hayes, with his unique, near spoken-word bass vocals and penchant for extended cuts, was responsible for the late sixties success of Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records. Besides recording the classic albums Shaft, The Isaac Hayes Movement and Hayes' personal favorite, Hot Buttered Soul, for the label, the man often called Black Moses also co-wrote a pair of Sam & Dave classics, "Hold On! I'm Comin'" and "Soul Man."

While maintaining his recording career, Hayes later spent time as a radio host (in both New York and Memphis), entrepreneur (he once co-owned an ABA basketball team), restaurateur, cookbook author, and actor. But to an entire generation he is probably best known as the voice of South Park's Chef ("Hello children!"), a role he gave up several months following the broadcast of an episode skewering Hayes' chosen religion, Scientology.

In January 2006, after the "Trapped in the Closet" broadcast, but before he resigned from the show, Hayes suffered a stroke. Caught between denials by his management and eventual confirmation by Hayes himself, perhaps we'd heard about it peripherally, but color us surprised, astonished, and maybe a little heartbroken when we were reminded, just a couple of hours before we were scheduled to talk to Isaac Hayes before his June appearance in Prospect Park to open the Celebrate Brooklyn season, that Hayes' recovery was not yet complete. And so on Thursday, June 5, when we received a call from Memphis's 901 area code, we tiptoed in (we did not mention the word "stroke").

What follows is the tenderly edited transcript of the conversation we had, just two months and five days before the legendary Isaac Hayes was pronounced dead in Cordova, Tennessee.

More >>

The thing about Isaac Hayes that we'll struggle mightily to replace, if we ever manage it at all, is his mastery of the pre-song monologue. (He died Sunday, in Memphis, at 65.) "I Stand Accused" is a desperate love song that moans on for over ten minutes, but within 1:30 it's already broken your heart: "You and John are real tight, aren't you?" Isaac asks, addressing his unrequited beloved, casually and somberly. And then: "Oh, is that an engagement ring? Oohhhhawwwww. Congratulations." This dude is top-5 all time based entirely on the way he says "congratulations." It's devastating. Not that R. Kelly or Ne-Yo or whoever don't have their charms, but this sort of thing nowadays is played entirely for laughs: Isaac rambles on here for nearly five minutes before he even bursts into song, and the tension never breaks, the smirk never comes. And when he finally does let 'er rip? You realize just what we've lost.

Below is "Simultaneous." We're not likely to replace that, either.