Soul music

Definition Music genre that blends traditions of gospel with rhythm and blues and emphasizes black consciousness and pride

Soul music evolved from African American popular music of the 1950s through the 1960s and 70s, growing highly diverse. Some artists exemplified the mellow sound of Motown, others emphasized social and political activism, and others fused soul with different genres. Later decades saw revivals of earlier styles as well as the ongoing influence of soul on music and popular culture around the world.

Soul music is a wide-ranging category that defies simple definition. At its broadest, the genre is essentially synonymous with rhythm and blues (R&B), in that it is rooted in gospel and spirituals mixed with blues and pop and aimed at a general audience. Indeed, the term "soul" has been applied to almost all African American popular music from the 1950s through the 1970s. The racial connotations of the term are well established—during the same era, the music of white performers inspired by African American R&B became known as rock and roll, while black artists tended to remain classified as R&B, soul, or, eventually, funk and other genres. White musicians have occasionally gained attention for soul music, but historically and in public perception, soul remains closely tied to expressions of black identity.

As with other popular genres, soul music has a complex and deep-rooted background. Gospel and blues developed in the African American community over centuries, and by the 1950s elements of those genres had begun to fuse with jump jazz and other influences to form R&B. This new genre made particular use of newly available electric guitars, drum kits, amplification, and other modern technology to create catchy, danceable songs. Among the pioneers of this new sound were Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and others. Spread by radio and records, the music became hugely popular throughout the United States and spread into other countries as well. While the work of some of these artists, like Chuck Berry, and their white imitators became known as rock and roll, others, like Sam Cooke, and later generations of black artists were increasingly classified as something else. By the early 1960s, this thread had developed into soul music.

The early 1960s saw continued success from pop/R&B artists like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke and important developments in the sounds of other pioneers such as James Brown. The period also saw breakthroughs by artists including Solomon Burke and Ben E. King, helping to coalesce soul as a movement within African American popular music. The growing genre's popularity inspired more artists who had previously stuck to gospel, blues, or other genres expand into the broader soul market. Chief among these was Aretha Franklin, who shifted from spiritual to secular music and became known as one of the greatest singers of all time. Meanwhile, the line between soul and R&B remained indistinct. The term "soul" was applied to pop acts emphasizing light material and synchronized dancing as well as to heavily gospel-tinged performers. The former style was most notably developed by Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan, with artists such as the Temptations and the Supremes finding great popularity. The Motown sound became perhaps the best known example of a regional style, with other prominent locations including Muscle Shoals, Alabama, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Memphis, Tennessee.

By the late 1960s, James Brown, dubbed the "Godfather of Soul," and Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul," dominated the genre and illustrated two important strains of soul music. Brown’s rough vocals and relentless rhythms emphasized a dance beat, while Franklin’s impassioned vocal style focused on relationships and personal communication. While Franklin in many ways represented what had become "traditional" soul, Brown laid the foundation for funk, which took soul in a new direction by emphasizing rhythm over melody. For example, his 1970 single "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" blended soul with relentless and complex rhythmic layers. With influence from other innovative artists like Sly and the Family Stone, who combined soul and psychedelic rock, funk eventually came to dominate African American popular music in the 1970s, leaving its own influence on disco, hip-hop, and other genres. Again, any boundaries between soul and funk were often blurred, with artists frequently crossing between sounds.

As the 1970s progressed, soul music took many new turns. Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Going On? (1971) addressed social and political issues with a percussive beat and an edgy vocal style. Stevie Wonder used socially conscious lyrics on his album Innervisions (1973), in which a more mellow soul style was fused with funk, rock, and jazz. Overtly sexual lyrics also became common—notably in the music of Gaye, Brown, and Ike and Tina Turner—while drug-related lyrics were heard in the "psychedelic soul" of Sly and the Family Stone and others. While funk, especially the music of George Clinton, was marketed primarily to black audiences, some groups such as Earth, Wind, and Fire and Kool and the Gang had strong crossover appeal. Soul and funk also reached a wider audience in the soundtracks for blaxploitation films, including Isaac Hayes’s Shaft (1971), Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly (1972), and Gaye’s Trouble Man (1972).

Other African American artists turned toward a more polished and romantic kind of soul, with smooth vocals accompanied by lush strings, horns, and percussion. Known as the "Philadelphia sound," this slick, mellow style was featured on the popular television dance show Soul Train. Groups such as MFSB (Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers), the O’Jays, the Blue Notes, the Spinners, and the Stylistics, as well as solo artists such as Roberta Flack and Barry White, epitomized this style, which helped pave the way for disco.

Meanwhile, the popularity of soul and its related genres was felt among white audiences and musicians as well. From the mid-1960s, the term "blue-eyed soul" was sometimes applied to white artists playing R&B or soul, most notably the Righteous Brothers. 1960s pop artists influenced by soul included the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Lonnie Mack, and Sonny & Cher. In the later part of the decade and into the 1970s, many blues rock and Southern rock artists took cues from soul music, including the Allman Brothers Band and Delaney and Bonnie, who recorded for notable soul labels such as Stax. Superstar David Bowie was also notably influenced by soul during the 1970s, especially on his 1975 album Young Americans, which he called "plastic soul."

By the end of the 1970s, soul hybrids were numerous and increasingly explored the potential of synthesizers. Stevie Wonder’s albums, especially Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979) with its fusion of soul with rock, funk, jazz, synthesized sounds, and even reggae and African music, sum up the variety of soul music by the end of the 1970s. This variety continued to be reflected over the next decades. Mainstream soul tended toward slow tempos and understated melodies into the 1980s, often merging with soft rock to produce radio hits. Major pop stars such as Prince and Michael Jackson drew directly from soul and R&B conventions, blending them with rock, pop, hip-hop, and the latest production techniques. Yet as funk and disco declined in popularity through the 1980s, soul music's influence on the leading edge of African American popular music became less clear. While the genre undoubtedly served as a building block for hip-hop and rap, this influence mainly came through funk and disco. More direct was soul's imprint on contemporary R&B, which strayed significantly from traditional rhythm and blues in its use of drum machines and smooth production, but retained its close associations with the black community.

The mid-1990s saw the first waves of neo-soul, which distinguished itself from contemporary R&B with more traditional soul elements, along with influence from jazz, world music, and other genres and often an Afrocentric outlook. It also reemphasized the musician over the producer, bringing artists like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu commercial and critical success. The twenty-first century also brought new performers of neo-soul, including John Legend and Alicia Keys. Some artists also more closely revived traditional styles of soul, from the funk-tinged Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and others on the Daptone record label to the pop crossover of Amy Winehouse. This revival perhaps signaled once and for all the lasting position of soul in popular culture.

Impact

At times true to its gritty roots, at others soft and mellow with slick orchestration, and at still others uncompromisingly rhythmic, soul music always communicated a sense of black pride. During the 1970s, soul music blended with almost every other popular musical style, transforming itself and American popular music in the process. The genre remains popular both for the classic material of its 1960s–70s heyday and as a permanent foundation of much new music.

Bibliography

Joyner, David. American Popular Music. 2d ed. McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Kallen, Stuart A. The History of R&B and Soul Music. Lucent Books, 2014.

Rudlinow, Joel. Soul Music: Tracking the Spiritual Roots of Pop from Plato to Motown. U of Michigan P, 2010.

Stuessy, Joe, and Scott Lipscomb. Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development. 4th ed. Prentice Hall, 2003.

Werner, Craig. A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America. Plume, 1999.