Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States
combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the
Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame
, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through
the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of
funky, secular
testifying." Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and
extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music.
Other characteristics are a
call and response between the
soloist and the chorus, and an especially tense vocal sound. The
genre also occasionally uses
improvisational additions, twirls and
auxiliary sounds.
Origins
Soul music has its roots in
gospel
music and
rhythm and blues. The
hard gospel vocal quartets of the 1940s and 1950s were big
influences on major soul singers of the 1960s.
Ray Charles is often cited as inventing
the soul genre with his string of hits starting with 1954's
"
I Got a Woman". Charles was open in
acknowledging the influence of
Pilgrim
Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style. Another
view has it that a decade would transpire until
Solomon Burke's early recordings for
Atlantic Records codified the soul style;
his early 1960s songs "Cry to Me", "Just Out of Reach" and "Down in
the Valley" are considered classics of the genre.
Little Richard (who was the inspiration for
Otis Redding),
Fats Domino and
James
Brown originally called themselves
rock and roll performers. However, as
rock music moved away from its R&B roots in
the 1960s, Brown claimed that he had always really been an R&B
singer. Little Richard proclaimed himself the "king of rockin' and
rollin', rhythm and blues soulin'", because his music embodied
elements of all three, and because he inspired artists in all three
genres.
Aretha Franklin's 1967 recordings,
such as "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "
Respect" (originally sung by
Otis Redding), and "
Do Right Woman-Do Right Man",
are considered the
apogee of the soul genre,
and were among its most commercially successful productions. In the
late 1960s,
Stax artists such as
Eddie Floyd and
Johnnie Taylor made significant contributions
to soul music.
Howard Tate's recordings
in the late 1960s for
Verve Records,
and later for Atlantic (produced by
Jerry
Ragovoy) are another notable body of work in the soul genre. By
1968, the soul music movement had begun to splinter, as artists
such as James Brown and
Sly
& the Family Stone began to incorporate new styles into
their music.
Geographical origins
Many
consider the birthplace of soul music to be northern United States inner cities, particularly Chicago
.
Other
cities, such as New
York
, Detroit
, Memphis
and Florence
, quickly
followed, creating their own soul styles based on their regional
gospel roots.
Florence, Alabama, was the home of Fame Studios. Jimmy Hughes,
Percy Sledge and
Arthur Alexander recorded at Fame, and
Aretha Franklin recorded in the area
later in the 1960s. Fame Studios (often referred to as
Muscle Shoals after a nearby town)
enjoyed a close relationship with the Memphis label
Stax Records, and many of the musicians and
producers who worked in Memphis contributed to recordings in
Alabama. Another notable Memphis label was Goldwax Records, which
signed
O.V. Wright and
James Carr. Carr's "
The Dark End of the Street"
(written by
Chips Moman and
Dan Penn) was recorded in 1967 at two other Memphis
studios, Royal Recording and American Sound Studios. American Sound
Studios owner Chips Moman produced "The Dark End of the Street",
and the musicians were his
house band of
Reggie Young, Bobby Woods, Tommy
Cogbill and Gene Chrisman. Carr also recorded songs at Fame Studio
with musicians
David Hood,
Jimmy Johnson and Roger
Hawkins.
The Detroit-based
Motown Records also
contributed to the soul canon in the 1960s, although at the time,
the label described itself as a manufacturer of
pop music. Music by Motown artists such as
Stevie Wonder,
Gladys Knight,
Marvin
Gaye and
Diana Ross did much to
popularise what became known as the
Motown sound.
In Chicago,
Curtis Mayfield helped
develop the
sweet soul sound that later earned him a
reputation as the Godfather of
northern
soul. As a member of
The
Impressions, Mayfield infused a
call and response style of group
singing that came out of gospel, and influenced many other groups
of the era, notably fellow Chicago artists the Radiants.
1970s
Later examples of soul music include recordings by
The Staple Singers (such as
I'll Take
You There), and
Al Green's 1970s
recordings, done at
Willie
Mitchell's' Royal Recording in Memphis. Mitchell's
Hi Records continued the
Stax tradition in that decade, releasing many
hits by Green,
Ann Peebles, Otis Clay,
O.V. Wright and
Syl Johnson.
Bobby Womack, who recorded with Chips Moman in
the late 1960s, continued to produce soul recordings in the 1970s
and 1980s.
In
Detroit, producer Don Davis worked
with Stax artists such as Johnnie
Taylor and The Dramatics. Early
1970s recordings by The Detroit Emeralds, such as
Do Me
Right, are a link between soul and the later
disco style.
Motown
Records artists such as
Marvin Gaye
and
Smokey Robinson contributed to
the evolution of soul music, although their recordings were
considered more in a
pop music vein than
those of Redding, Franklin and Carr.
Although stylistically
different from classic soul music, recordings by Chicago-based
artists are often considered part of the genre.
By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by
psychedelic rock and other genres. The
social and political ferment of the times inspired artists like
Gaye and
Curtis Mayfield to release
album-length statements with hard-hitting social commentary.
Artists like
James Brown led
soul towards
funk music, which became typified
by 1970s bands like
Parliament-Funkadelic and
The Meters. More versatile groups like
War, the
Commodores and
Earth, Wind and Fire became
popular around this time. During the 1970s, some slick and
commercial
blue-eyed soul acts like
Philadelphia's
Hall & Oates and
Oakland's
Tower of Power achieved
mainstream success, as did a new generation of street-corner
harmony or
city-soul groups like
The Delfonics and Howard University's Unifics.
By the end of the 1970s,
disco and funk were
dominating the charts. Philly soul and most other soul genres were
dominated by disco-inflected tracks. During this period, groups
like
The O'Jays and
The Spinners continued to turn out
hits.
1980s and later
The emergence of
hip hop culture in
the 1970s greatly influenced the soul music that followed in the
1980s.
Afrika Bambaata & The
Soulsonic Force had hits with a new electronic sound, with songs
such as "Planet Rock" and "Looking For The Perfect Beat". Soul
music-makers realised they would have to make their beats bigger,
and also find a way of fusing soul with drum machines and
synthesizers. Production teams like "
Jimmy
Jam" and
Terry Lewis (former members
of
The Time),
L.A.
Reid and
Babyface
created a harder but also lusher almost epic soul sound which had a
greater focus on beat and rhythm over vocals, providing endless
hits for
Janet Jackson,
TLC,
Alexander
O'Neal,
The SOS Band and
Bobby Brown. Still, many soul singers rose to
prominence such as
Whitney Houston,
Anita Baker, and
Sade.
Writer and producer
Teddy
Riley and others created
new jack
swing (also known as swingbeat), which fused soul and hip hop.
Riley's sound consisted of hip hop beats, gospel and jazz melodies,
and a raw and sparse sound.
After the decline of disco and funk in the early 1980s, soul music
became influenced by
electro music. It
became less raw and more slickly produced, resulting in a style
known as
contemporary R&B,
which sounded very different from the original
rhythm and blues style.
In mid 1980s Chicago,
house music was
heavily influenced by soul, funk and disco. This was mainly made
using
synthesizers and other electronic
equipment. House and
techno rose to
mainstream popularity in the late 1980s and remained popular in the
1990s and 2000s.
Also starting in the 1980s, soul music from
the United
Kingdom
become popular worldwide.
The United States saw the development of
neo-soul around 1994. Mainstream
record label marketing support for soul genres
cooled in the 2000s due to the industry's re-focus on hip
hop.
In the fifth season of Fox's
American
Idol,
Taylor Hicks won the show and
has a fan club called the
Soul
Patrol which is a reflection of the genre he prefers to
sing.
Subgenres
Detroit (Motown) soul
Dominated by
Berry Gordy's
Motown Records empire, Detroit soul is
strongly rhythmic and influenced by gospel music. The Motown sound
often includes hand
clapping, a powerful
bass line,
violins and
bell. Motown Records' house band was
The Funk Brothers.
Deep soul and southern soul
The terms
deep soul and
southern soul generally
refer to a driving, energetic soul style combining
R&B's energy with pulsating southern
United States
gospel music sounds.
Memphis,
Tennessee label Stax Records
nurtured a distinctive sound, which included putting vocals further
back in the mix than most contemporary R&B records, using
vibrant horn parts in place of background vocals, and a focus on
the low end of the frequency spectrum. The vast majority of
Stax releases were backed by house bands
Booker T and the MGs (with
Booker T. Jones,
Steve
Cropper,
Duck Dunn, and
Al Jackson) and the Memphis Horns (the splinter
horn section of the
Mar-Keys).
Memphis soul
Memphis soul is a shimmering, sultry
style of soul music produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records and Hi
Records in Memphis,
Tennessee. It featured melancholic and melodic horns,
organ, bass, and drums, as heard in recordings by Hi's
Al Green and Stax's
Booker T. & the M.G.'s. The latter
group also sometimes played in the harder-edged
Southern soul style. The Hi Records house band
(
Hi Rhythm Section) and producer
Willie Mitchell developed
a surging soul style heard in the label's 1970s hit recordings.
Some Stax recordings fit into this style, but had their own unique
sound.
New Orleans soul
The New Orleans soul scene directly came out of the rhythm and
blues era, when such artists as
Little
Richard,
Fats Domino, and
Huey Piano Smith made a huge impact on the
pop and R&B charts and a huge directly influence for the birth
of the
Funk music . The principal architect of
Crescent City’s soul was songwriter, arranger, and producer
Allen Toussaint. He worked with such
artists as
Irma Thomas (“the Soul Queen
of New Orleans”), Jessie Hill, Kris Kenner, Benny Spellman, and
Ernie K. Doe on the Minit/Instant label complex to
produced a distinctive New Orleans soul sound generating a passel
of national hits. Other notable New Orleans hits came from Robert
Parker,
Betty Harris, and
Aaron Neville. While record labels in New
Orleans largely disappeared by the mid-1960s, producers in the city
continued to record New Orleans soul artists for other mainly New
York and Los Angeles record labels—notably
Lee Dorsey for New York-based Amy Records and the
Meters for New York-based Josie and then LA-based Reprise.
Chicago soul
Chicago soul generally had a light gospel-influenced sound, but the
large number of record labels based in the city tended to produce a
more diverse sound than other cities.
Vee Jay Records, which lasted until 1966,
produced recordings by
Jerry Butler,
Betty Everett,
Dee Clark, and
Gene
Chandler.
Chess Records, mainly a
blues and rock and roll label, produced a number of major soul
artists. Mayfield not only scored many hits with his group, the
The Impressions, but wrote many hit
songs for Chicago artists and produced hits on his own labels for
The Fascinations and the
Five Stairsteps.
Philadelphia soul
Based primarily in the
Philadelphia International record
label, Philadelphia soul (AKA Philly Soul) had a lush
orchestral sound and
doo-wop-inspired vocals.
Thom
Bell, and
Kenneth
Gamble & Leon Huff are considered the founders of
Philadelphia soul.
Psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul was a blend of
psychedelic rock and soul music in the late
1960s, which paved the way for the mainstream emergence of
funk music a few years later.
Blue-eyed soul
Blue-eyed soul is a term used to describe
R&B or soul music performed by
white artists. The term doesn't refer to a
distinct style of music, and the meaning of
blue-eyed soul
has evolved over decades. Originally the term was associated with
mid-1960s white artists who performed soul and R&B that was
similar to the music released by
Motown
Records and
Stax Records.
The term
continued to be used in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by the
British media to
describe a new generation of singers who adopted elements of the
Stax and Motown sounds. To a lesser extent, the term has
been applied to singers in other
music
genres that are influenced by soul music.
British Soul
Soul has been a major influence on British popular music since the
1960s including bands of the
British
Invasion, most significantly
The
Beatles. There were a handful of significant British
Blue-eyed soul acts, including
Dusty Springfield and
Tom Jones. American soul was extremely popular
among some youth sub-cultures like the
Northern soul and
Modern soul movements, but a clear genre of
British soul did not emerge until the 1980s when a number of
artists including
George Michael,
Sade,
Simply
Red,
Lisa Stansfield and
Soul II Soul enjoyed some commercial
success. The popularity of British soul artists in the U.S., most
notably
Amy Winehouse,
Estelle,
Joss
Stone and
Leona Lewis led to talk of
a third British Invasion or soul invasion in the 2000s.
Neo soul
The term
neo soul is a marketing phrase coined by producer
and
record label executive
Kedar Massenburg to describe a musical
blend of 1970s soul-style vocals and instrumentation with
contemporary R&B sounds,
hip hop beats and poetic interludes. The style was
developed in the early to mid 1990s. A key element in neo soul is a
heavy dose of
Fender Rhodes or
Wurlitzer electric piano
pads over a mellow, grooving interplay between the drums (usually
with a rim shot snare sound) and a muted, deep funky bass. The
Fender Rhodes piano sound gives the music a warm, organic
character.
Northern soul and modern soul
The phrase
northern soul was coined by journalist
Dave Godin and popularised in 1970 through his
column in
Blues and Soul magazine. The term refers to rare
soul music that was played by DJs at
nightclubs in
northern
England.
The playlists originally consisted of
obscure 1960s and early 1970s American soul recordings with an uptempo beat, such as those on Motown Records and more obscure labels such
as Okeh Records. Modern soul developed when northern soul DJs
began looking in record shops in the United States and United Kingdom for music that was more complex and
contemporary. What emerged was a richer sound that was more
advanced in terms of
Hi-Fi and
FM radio technology.
Nu-Jazz and soulful electronica
Many artists in various genres of
electronic music (such as
house,
drum n bass,
UK garage, and
downtempo) are heavily influenced by soul, and
have produced many soul-inspired compositions.
See also
References
- Otis Redding
- White, Charles. (2003), p. 229. The Life and Times of
Little Richard: The Authorised Biography. Omnibus Press.
- Frederick Douglass Opie, Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa
to America, (Columbia University Press 2008), chapter 7
- P. Humphries, The Complete Guide to the Music of the
Beatles (Music Sales Group, 1998), p. 83.
- R. Gulla, Icons of R&B and soul: an encyclopedia of the
artists who revolutionized rhythm (Greenwood Publishing Group,
2008), p. xxii.
- G. Wald, "Soul's Revival: White Soul, Nostalgia and the
Culturally Constructed Past, M. Guillory and R. C. Green,
Soul: Black power, politics, and pleasure (New York University
Press, 1997), pp. 139-58.
- Selling their soul: women leading the way in
R&B British invasion Canada.com June 9, 2008
- The New British Invasion: Soul Divas 2008 The
Daily Voice April 30, 2008
- Dancers Only by Chris Hunt, Mojo. 2002]
Bibliography
- Cummings, Tony (1975). The Sound of Philadelphia.
London: Eyre Methuen.
- Escott, Colin. (1995). Liner notes for The Essential James
Carr. Razor and Tie Records.
- Gillett, Charlie (1974). Making Tracks. New York: E.
P. Dutton.
- Guralnick, Peter (1986). Sweet Soul Music. New York:
Harper & Row.
- Hannusch, Jeff (1985). I Hear You Knockin': The Sound of
New Orleans Rhythm and Blues. Ville Platte, LA: Swallow
Publications. ISBN 0-9614245-0-8.
- Hoskyns, Barney (1987). Say it One More Time for the Broken
Hearted. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.
- Jackson, John A. (2004). A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall
of Philadelphia Soul. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-195-14972-6.
- Miller, Jim (editor) (1976). The Rolling Stone Illustrated
History of Rock & Roll. New York: Rolling Stone
Press/Random House. ISBN 0-394-73238-3. (Chapter on "Soul," by
Guralnick, Peter. pp. 194-197.
- Pruter, Robert (1991). Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois
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- Pruter, Robert, editor (1993). Blackwell Guide to Soul
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0-631-18595-X
- Walker, Don (1985). The Motown Story. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons.
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