Legendary singer Isaac Hayes who wrote and sang the theme song for "Shaft" and voiced the advice-giving Chef on "South Park" dropped dead on during a workout at his Memphis home Sunday. He was 65.
Relatives found the soul singer unconscious next to a still-running treadmill, said a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff's department said.
He released his first solo album in 1967, and his 1969 follow-up, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a platinum hit.
In 1971, the theme from "Shaft" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and won an Academy Award for best original theme song. The song and the movie score also won Grammy awards for best original score and movie theme.
He's been the voice of Chef on South Park since the early 90s but chose to leave the show after it lampooned his religion, the Church of Scientology.
Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. In a CNN interview at the time, Hayes credited his success to "adjusting and constantly evolving, expanding and trying to stay as young as I can."
The new generation of popular musicians, he said, "could use a little more substance like we had in the day."
"They're standing on our shoulders. Some of them don't realize [it] because they sample me so much," he said.
