Which 1969 Isaac Hayes album opens with an 18-minute version of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”?

The 1969 Isaac Hayes album containing his nearly 19-minute version of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” is Hot Buttered Soul.

Released by Enterprise in June 1969, Hot Buttered Soul was Hayes’s second studio album and a landmark in progressive soul. Rather than following the usual three-minute single format, it presented just four expansive performances, transforming familiar pop and country songs through long grooves, orchestration, instrumental breaks, and spoken-word passages.

The album’s Hayes version of Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” runs about 18 minutes and 40 seconds. Hayes begins with an extended monologue before the familiar song emerges, turning the breakup narrative into an intimate, theatrical confession.

One detail is often misstated in trivia questions: the album does not literally open with “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Its opening track is the extended “Walk On By”; “Phoenix” appears later in the sequence. Nevertheless, Hot Buttered Soul is the unique and canonical answer because it contains the famous long version.