"Walk On By" (Isaac Hayes)

If you like playing "spot the sample" like I do, you'll recognize Isaac Hayes's "Walk On By" as the entire basis of the Hooverphonic song "2Wicky" (1996).  
As with most things, though, the original is better.
Back in 1969, Hayes recorded the album Hot Buttered Soul, which contains his take on the Hal David-Burt Bacharach song "Walk On By."  As music journalist Barry Lazell wrote in the liner notes for Hayes's Enterprise: His Greatest Hits (1980), the label released 27 albums by its entire roster of artists, all at once, in May 1969 as a promotional push--the idea being to get the Stax name and its talent in front of music buyers and radio program directors across the nation.  Hot Buttered Soul was an afterthought--basically a jam session that produced four, sprawling tracks that no one, including Hayes, expected to get any kind of airplay.  The record only existed to help Stax flood the market.  (Lazell points out that Stax's promotional posters had new albums by famed artists like Johnny Taylor, Booker T. & The MG's, and Eddie Floyd, front and center, while the cover for Hot Buttered Soul was tucked quietly into the lower right corner.)
To Hayes's and the label's surprise, the album--particularly "Walk On By"--got major FM airplay and huge sales.  The Motown music machine and Philly soulsters took notice, and before too long, artists from The Temptations to The O'Jays were recording songs with fuzzed-out guitars, heavier/funkier drums, and sprawling arrangements that filled up whole sides of vinyl records.
I'm sure that, at the time, no one could have anticipated Hayes's radical funk/soul arrangement of Dionne Warwick's 1964 hit tune--which is itself a great track.  
It's a pretty radical departure from Warwick's light bossa nova groove.  The drums immediately kick in with massive amounts of reverb, sounding like someone slamming a door and kicking a suitcase down a flight of stairs.  Then there's this extended interlude with lush strings, fuzz guitar, church organ, and fat electric bass before Hayes even opens his mouth to sing.  But when he does sing, you hear this husky, grieving baritone.  Lines like If you see me walking down the street / And I start to cry / Each time we meet somehow take on a different resonance and reveal a deeper pain--especially when paired with the wailing guitar and female chorus backing vocals--than Warwick's version.  It's larger-than-life dramatic.  It's a Memphis soul version of Greek tragedy.