Issac Hayes was born on August 20, 1942.
Isaac Hayes is a multi-faceted talent: songwriter, producer, sideman, solo artist, film scorer, actor, rapper and deejay. He has been hugely influential on the rap movement as both a spoken-word pioneer and larger-than-life persona who’s influenced everyone from Barry White to Puff Daddy. Hayes is best known for his soundtrack to Shaft, one of the first and best “blaxploitation” films, and for the song “Theme from ‘Shaft,’” a Top Ten hit. But his varied resume boasts everything from backing up Otis Redding and writing for Sam and Dave and others at Stax Records in the Sixties to serving as the voice of Chef on South Park in the Nineties. At the peak of his popularity in the early Seventies, Hayes devised the character “Black Moses,” based on his public persona. With his shaved head, dark glasses, bulging muscles, gold chains, fur coats and serious, unsmiling demeanor, Hayes came off as both a potent sex symbol and an icon for African-American pride. Moreover, according to Jim Stewart, founder of Stax Records, “Isaac Hayes is one of the main roots of the Memphis Sound.”
Hayes died in 2008.
Don King is 80 today.
Ron Paul is 76.
Connie Chung is 65 today.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (as part of Led Zeppelin) Robert Plant is 63.
Al Roker is 57.
Three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen is 55 — Nixon, The Crucible, The Contender.
Three-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams is 37 — Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter.
Demi Lovato is 19.
Alan Reed was born as Edward Bergman 104 years ago today. I won’t tell you why he’s famous. Just listen when the man talks in the video. (Fun even if you see the title at the beginning.) No need to listen after the first few seconds.
Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, was born on this date in 1833. Until Jenna or Barbara Bush gets the job, Harrison remains the only grandchild of a president to also be president.
The NFL is 91 today.
The National Football League was the idea of legendary American-Indian Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, player-coach of the Canton Bulldogs, and Leo Lyons, owner of the Rochester Jeffersons, a sandlot football team.
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On August 20, 1920, at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio, the league was formalized, originally as the American Professional Football Conference, initially consisting only of the Ohio League teams, although some of the teams declined participation. One month later, the league was renamed the American Professional Football Association, adding Buffalo and Rochester from the New York league, and Detroit, Hammond, and several other teams from nearby circuits. The eleven founding teams initially struck an agreement over player poaching and the declaration of an end-of-season champion. Thorpe, while still playing for the Bulldogs, was elected president. Only four of the founding teams finished the 1920 schedule and the undefeated Akron Pros claimed the first championship. Membership of the league increased to 22 teams – including more of the New York teams – in 1921, but throughout the 1920s the membership was unstable and the league was not a major national sport. On June 24, 1922, the organization, now headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, changed its title a final time to the National Football League.
The Great Fire of 1910 began on August 20th. It burned over 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana and killed 87 people, 78 of them firefighters. Timothy Egan wrote about the fire in The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America