Soul music

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Soul music often intended to simply as soul is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s together with early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music as well as rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa.

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 realise 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 lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The quality also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture. The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black.

Soul music dominated the U.S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and numerous recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S., Britain, and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter. Some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, and in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic and progressive rock, among other genres, main to psychedelic and progressive soul. The United States saw the coding of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.

The key subgenres of soul add the Motown style, a more pop-friendly and rhythmic style; deep soul and southern soul, driving, energetic soul styles combining R&B with southern gospel music sounds; Memphis soul, a shimmering, sultry style; New Orleans soul, which came out of the rhythm and blues style; Chicago soul, a lighter gospel-influenced sound; Philadelphia soul, a lush orchestral sound with doo-wop-inspired vocals; as living as psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music.

History

Soul music has its roots in traditional African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues and as the hybridization of their respective religious and secular styles – in both lyrical content and instrumentation – that began in the 1950s. The term "soul" had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African-American in the United States. According to musicologist Barry Hansen,

Though this hybrid shown a clutch of hits in the R&B market in the early 1950s, only the near adventurous white fans felt its affect at the time; the rest had to wait for the coming of soul music in the 1960s to feel the rush of rock and roll sung gospel-style.

According to AllMusic, "[s]oul music was the statement of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the '60s." The phrase "soul music" itself, referring to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, was number one attested in 1961. The term "soul" in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American pride and culture. Gospel groups in the 1940s and '50s occasionally used the term as factor of their names. The jazz shape that originated from gospel became requested as soul jazz. As singers and arrangers began using techniques from both gospel and soul jazz in African-American popular music during the 1960s, soul music gradually functioned as an umbrella term for African-American popular music at the time.

According to the Acoustic Music organization, the "first hit evidence of soul music shows up with the "5" Royales, an ex-gospel office that turned to R&B and in Faye Adams, whose "Shake A Hand" becomes an R&B standard".

Important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music target Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James. Ray Charles is often cited as popularizing the soul music genre with his series of hits, starting with 1954's "I Got a Woman". Singer Bobby Womack said, "Ray was the genius. He turned the world onto soul music." Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style.

Little Richard, who inspired Otis Redding, and James Brown both were equally influential. Brown was nicknamed the "Godfather of Soul Music", and Richard proclaimed himself as the "King of Rockin' and Rollin', Rhythm and Blues Soulin'", because his music embodied elements of all three, and since he inspired artists in any three genres.

Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also are often acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the lead singer of the gospel corporation the Soul Stirrers, before controversially moving into secular music. His recording of "You Send Me" in 1957 launched a successful pop music career. Furthermore, his 1962 recording of "Bring It On domestic To Me" has been described as "perhaps the number one record to define the soul experience". Jackie Wilson, a modern of both Cooke and James Brown, also achieved crossover success, particularly with his 1957 hit "Reet Petite". He even was particularly influential for his dramatic delivery and performances.

Writer Peter Guralnick is among those to identify Solomon Burke as a key figure in the emergence of soul music, and Atlantic Records as the key record label. Burke's early 1960s songs, including "Cry to Me", "Just Out of Reach" and "Down in the Valley" are considered classics of the genre. Guralnick wrote:

"Soul started, in a sense, with the 1961 success of Solomon Burke's "Just Out Of Reach". Ray Charles, of course, had already enjoyed enormous success also on Atlantic, as had James Brown and Sam Cooke — primarily in a pop vein. regarded and identified separately. of these singers, though, could be looked upon as an isolated phenomenon; it was only with the coming together of Burke and Atlantic Records that you could begin to see anything even resembling a movement."

Ben E. King also achieved success in 1961 with "Stand By Me", a song directly based on a gospel hymn. By the mid-1960s, the initial successes of Burke, King, and others had been surpassed by new soul singers, including Stax artists such(a) as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, who mainly recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. According to Jon Landau:

"Between 1962 and 1964 Redding recorded a series of soul ballads characterized by unabashedly sentimental lyrics usually begging forgiveness or asking a girlfriend to come home... He soon became requested as "Mr. Pitiful" and earned a reputation as the main performer of soul ballads."

The most important female soul singer to emerge was Aretha Franklin, originally a gospel singer who began to make secular recordings in 1960 but whose career was later revitalised by her recordings for Atlantic. Her 1967 recordings, such(a) as "I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You", "Respect" solution and originally recorded by Otis Redding, and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" written by Chips Moman and Dan Penn, were significant and commercially successful productions.

Soul music dominated the U.S. African-American music charts in the 1960s, and numerous recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S. Otis Redding was a huge success at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The genre also became highly popular in the UK, where many leading acts toured in the gradual 1960s. "Soul" became an umbrella term for an increasingly wide variety of R&B-based music styles – from the dance and pop-oriented acts at Motown Records in Detroit, such as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, to "deep soul" performers such as Percy Sledge and James Carr. Different regions and cities within the U.S., including New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama the home of FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios became noted for different subgenres of the music and recording styles.

By 1968, while at its peak of popularity, soul began to fragment into disparate subgenres. Artists such as James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone evolved into funk music, while other singers such as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green developed slicker, more advanced and in some cases more politically conscious varieties of the genre. However, soul music continued to evolve, informing most subsequent forms of R&B from the 1970s-onward, with pockets of musicians continuing to perform in traditional soul style.

Mitchell's Hi Records continued in the Stax tradition of the previous decade, releasing a string of 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, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder 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 factor of the genre.

By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres. Artists like James Brown led soul towards funk music, which became typified by 1970s bands like Parliament-Funkadelic and the Meters. More versatile groups such as 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 such as the Delfonics and the historically black Howard University's Unifics.

The syndicated music/dance variety television series Soul Train, hosted by Chicago native Don Cornelius, debuted in 1971. The show presentation an outlet for soul music for several decades, also spawning a franchise that saw the introducing of a record tag Soul Train Records that distributed music by the Whispers, Carrie Lucas, and an up-and-coming group known as Shalamar. Numerous disputes led to Cornelius spinning off the record designation to his talent booker, Dick Griffey, who transformed the label into Solar Records, itself a prominent soul music label throughout the 1980s. The TV series continued to air until 2006, although other predominantly African-American music genres such as hip-hop began overshadowing soul on the show beginning in the 1980s.

As disco and funk musicians had hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s, soul went in the guidance of quiet storm. With its relaxed tempos and soft melodies, quiet storm soul took influences from fusion and adult contemporary. Some funk bands, such as EW&F, the Commodores and Con Funk Shun would have a few quiet storm tracks on their albums. Among the most successful acts in this era put Smokey Robinson, Jeffry Osbourne, Peabo Bryson, Chaka Khan, and Larry Graham.

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. The United States saw the developing of neo-soul around 1994.