American in origin. Hot Buttered Soul was set up by Isaac Hayes in 1975. It issued more than a dozen singles in the States during the period 1975-77, but only managed four over here. All the UK releases featured Hayes himself. 'Billboard' of the 11th of May 1974 said that the new label was to be handled by Stax, but Hayes and Stax had a falling-out. Hayes signed to ABC, and when Hot Buttered Soul debuted it was as part of the ABC stable. Its records in Britain featured the logos of both companies. ABC-backed concern Anchor (q.v.) was responsible for Hot Buttered Soul here, as it was for the other ABC labels. The first single was manufactured and distributed by EMI (1); promo copies had EMI-style markings (3). When Anchor switched to CBS, in September 1975, Hot Buttered Soul went with it. The label design remained basically unaltered (2), but the markings on promo copies changed: in common with those of ABC and Anchor from that point they had a medium-sized central black 'A', and the legend 'Advance promotion copy' at two o'clock (4). As can be seen, the logos on the CBS-era promo copies were large than those on the issues. For some reason promos of ABC-4111 had ABC promo labels; issue copies had the usual 'two logos' type. Catalogue numbers shared ABC's ABC-4000 catalogue series.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.