Fact #162041

Dave Porter (of Sam And Dave) : One particular evening, Isaac (Hayes) came in and he says, 'Hey, man, I heard a term, 'soul' - the term 'soul' was not big - he said, 'I got this talking thing about a soul man, a brother.' So I said, 'What do you think?' and he said, 'I don't know, but we can make it into a slang thing, you know?' I went home and envisioned a Soul Man, what he would be. So the only thing I could come up with was a guy, more or less like a farming kind of guy, who worked very hard - he was a hard worker but a great lover - and who didn't have the fancy big city slant, but had the emotional thing happening inside of him that made people really love him. …

Steve Cropper (guitarist, Stax Records] : Isaac Hayes had been writing all night, and he came out to the office and asked if I had a guitar around, because he just couldn't get an intro going. He started blocking some chords out, and we came up with that intro and recorded it the next day.

Dave Porter : When the term 'soul' started catching on the way it did, and not only catching on in black radio but pop radio as well, we were pleasantly surprised. And when it hit No1 in Cash Box, we went 'Wow!'