Soul music

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Soul music arrived in America during the late 1950s and early 1960s, born out of African-American communities across the United States. It carried something that set it apart from anything before: a restless, searching sound that drew equally from the sacred and the secular, from church pews and dance floors, from the deep roots of gospel and the propulsive energy of rhythm and blues.

  Ray Charles, the man singer Bobby Womack called "the genius", is often credited with popularizing the genre. His 1954 recording "I Got a Woman" is widely cited as one of the key early moments. Charles openly acknowledged that he drew on Jesse Whitaker, the vocalist for the Pilgrim Travelers, as an influence on his own singing style. He did not simply blend two musical traditions. He helped show a generation of listeners what that blending could feel like.

  Womack's words, simple as they are, carry a charge: "Ray was the genius. He turned the world onto soul music." What drove that turning? What shaped the genre as it grew, splintered, and spread? And how did a music born from a specific cultural struggle become one of the most far-reaching popular forms of the twentieth century?

• 2. Sacred Roots

  ›

  The phrase "soul music", referring specifically to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, was first recorded in 1961. But the impulse behind that music went back much further. Gospel groups in the 1940s and 1950s occasionally used the word "soul" in their names, and the jazz style that grew out of gospel became known as soul jazz.

  Among African-American musicians, the word carried a particular meaning. It signaled a feeling of what it meant to be Black in the United States. That connotation was not incidental. According to musicologist Barry Hansen, early R&B hits in the 1950s that blended gospel and secular styles reached only the most adventurous white listeners at the time. The broader audience had to wait for the 1960s to experience what he described as the "rush of rock and roll sung gospel-style."

  The "5" Royales, an ex-gospel group that crossed into R&B, are cited by the Acoustic Music Organization as among the first clear evidence of soul music. Faye Adams and her recording "Shake A Hand" also belongs to that early chapter. Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James are named as important innovators whose 1950s recordings helped bring the genre into focus. Sam Cooke, who first gained fame leading the gospel group the Soul Stirrers before moving into secular music, released "You Send Me" in 1957. His 1962 recording "Bring It On Home to Me" has been described as perhaps the first record to define the soul experience outright.

• 3. Building a Movement

  ›

  Writer Peter Guralnick identified Solomon Burke's "Just Out of Reach", a 1961 hit on Atlantic Records, as the moment soul began to resemble a movement rather than a collection of individual talents. Before Burke, artists like Ray Charles, James Brown, and Sam Cooke were, in Guralnick's words, each "an isolated phenomenon." It was the pairing of Burke and Atlantic that made something collective visible.

  Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun had not planned a career in music. He had expected to become a diplomat until his father died in 1944, after which he founded Atlantic Records in 1947 alongside his friend Herb Abramson. Ertegun wrote songs for Ray Charles and the Clovers and even sang backup vocals for Big Joe Turner on "Shake, Rattle and Roll."

  Ben E. King's 1961 hit "Stand by Me", drawn directly from a gospel hymn, added another landmark to those early years. By the mid-1960s, the initial wave of success had given way to a new generation. Stax artists Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, recording in Memphis, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, surpassed the earlier figures in visibility. Between 1962 and 1964, Redding recorded a series of soul ballads with frankly sentimental lyrics, earning the nickname "Mr. Pitiful" and a reputation as the leading performer of that style. Aretha Franklin, who had started making secular recordings in 1960, found her career transformed by her 1967 Atlantic recordings, including "Respect" - originally written and recorded by Otis Redding - and "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)."

• 4. Motown's Assembly Line

  ›

  Berry Gordy's Tamla/Motown group of labels stood apart from most of the independent R&B labels of the era in one significant way: it was African American owned. The roster it built was extraordinary - Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Miracles, the Four Tops, the Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Jackson 5, among others.

  Hits were made using what the label itself described as a quasi-industrial "assembly line" approach. Songwriters and producers brought artistic sensitivity to three-minute tunes designed for radio and crossover appeal. Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland were rarely out of the charts, writing and producing for the Supremes, the Four Tops, and Martha and the Vandellas. The rhythm was typically emphasized by handclaps or tambourine. The Funk Brothers served as the label's house band.

  Smokey Robinson was another central figure, writing and producing for the Miracles, including "The Tracks of My Tears", described as one of the most important songs of the decade. AllMusic identifies Motown as the pioneering label of pop-soul: raw vocals over polished production, with subject matter toned down for pop radio. That formula proved durable. In the late 2000s, artists including Amy Winehouse, Raphael Saadiq with his 2008 album The Way I See It, and Solange Knowles with her 2008 album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams revisited and extended the style.

• 5. Cities and Their Sounds

  ›

  Muscle Shoals, Alabama, home to FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, became one of several American cities whose particular recording environment shaped a distinctive branch of soul. Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York City each developed their own sound.

  In Memphis, Stax Records and Hi Records defined a shimmering, sultry style built around melancholic horns, Hammond organ, bass, and drums. The Stax house band included Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson - known together as Booker T. and the M.G.'s. The horn section, drawn from the Mar-Keys, featured trumpeter Wayne Jackson and saxophonist Andrew Love as the Memphis Horns.

  New Orleans soul traced directly to the rhythm and blues era, when Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Huey "Piano" Smith shaped the local pop sound. The central architect of the city's soul was Allen Toussaint, who worked as songwriter, arranger, and producer with artists including Irma Thomas, known as "the Soul Queen of New Orleans," and Ernie K-Doe, among others, on the Minit/Instant label complex.

  In Philadelphia, the soul that emerged was orchestral and lush, built on doo-wop-inspired vocals and rich string and horn arrangements. Thom Bell and the partnership of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff are considered its founders. Their label, Philadelphia International, produced hits for Patti LaBelle, the O'Jays, the Stylistics, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and the Spinners. Chicago's scene was shaped by a lighter gospel-influenced sound, with Curtis Mayfield scoring hits through the Impressions while also writing and producing for the Fascinations, Major Lance, and the Five Stairsteps on his own labels.

• 6. Splintering and Evolving

  ›

  By 1968, soul was at its peak of popularity and simultaneously beginning to pull apart. James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone moved toward funk, a direction that produced 1970s bands like Parliament-Funkadelic and the Meters. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and Al Green each developed more sophisticated and, in some cases, more politically conscious variants of the original sound.

  Progressive rock and psychedelic rock left their marks on soul by the early 1970s. Isaac Hayes's 1969 recording of "Walk On By" is described as a classic of progressive soul. Martin, a music scholar whose first name appears in the source, cites albums from this period by Stevie Wonder - Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life - as well as War's All Day Music and The World Is a Ghetto, and the Isley Brothers' 3 + 3.

  Soul Train, the syndicated television series hosted by Chicago native Don Cornelius, debuted in 1971 and provided a platform for soul music for several decades. The show spawned a record label, Soul Train Records, which released music by the Whispers, Carrie Lucas, and a then-emerging group called Shalamar. Disputes eventually led Cornelius to transfer the label to his talent booker, Dick Griffey, who transformed it into Solar Records - itself a prominent soul outlet through the 1980s. The series continued airing until 2006, though by the 1980s hip-hop had begun to overshadow soul on the program.

  As disco and funk peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a quieter direction emerged: quiet storm soul, built on relaxed tempos, soft melodies, and influences from fusion and adult contemporary. Smokey Robinson, Peabo Bryson, and Chaka Khan were among its successful acts. Then, after disco's decline, electro music pulled soul further toward what became contemporary R&B, a sound that was more slickly produced and markedly different from the original rhythm and blues style.

• 7. Global Reach and Neo Soul

  ›

  Soul music's reach extended well beyond the United States. In the early 1960s, small soul scenes formed across the UK, with Liverpool's established Black community producing artists such as Chants and Steve Aldo. American soul profoundly influenced the British Invasion bands, most significantly the Beatles. A handful of British artists achieved genuine prominence as blue-eyed soul performers, including Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones.

  By the 1980s, a clear genre of British soul had taken shape, with George Michael, Sade, Simply Red, Lisa Stansfield, and Soul II Soul achieving commercial success. In the 2000s and 2010s, the popularity of British artists including Amy Winehouse, Adele, Estelle, Duffy, Joss Stone, and Leona Lewis in the United States generated talk of a "Third British Invasion" or "British Soul Invasion."

  The subgenre that most directly renewed the original tradition was neo soul. The term was coined in the early 1990s by producer and record label executive Kedar Massenburg. Neo soul blended 1970s soul vocals and instrumentation with contemporary R&B sounds, hip-hop beats, and poetic interludes. A defining sonic element was the heavy use of Fender Rhodes or Wurlitzer electronic piano over mellow, grooved drum-and-bass interplay. The style developed through the early to mid-1990s and its notable artists include Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, and Aloe Blacc. Newer artists including H.E.R. and SZA have carried those influences forward into the present.