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What is soul
Music?
Soul
music is a popular style of music created by African American musicians
that first gained a following during the 1950s. At that time, musicians like Ray
Charles and James Brown blended familiar gospel singing with rhythm and blues to
produce the first
soul music sounds. Some found this early music almost sacrilegious, as
depicted in the
biopic
film Ray. To take gospel, one of the great African American
contributions to Christianity, and use the singing style to talk about love,
women, and good times, seemed to some a trifle risky.
... nature of soul music, a
form of black pop derived from gospel married to rhythm and blues, and which
existed in its pure state for about 10 years--from the middle 50's to the death
of Martin ... more »
Luther King, Jr. when the wind went out of soul. Guralnick spent over four years
writing and interviewing for this book and the work shows, though Sweet Soul
Music is not meant to be exhaustive. (It's exhaustingly minute here and there,
with paragraphs that just go on and on as if his word processor had picked up
the story on its own.) As for what is soul music--Guralnick's definition varied
with his work on the book and he never does reach a reader-satisfying
formulation. It's enough to say that it begins in the sincere exhortations of
gospel (singing to You God) that somehow married the devil (rhythm and blues and
commerce) and came up with ""you found me cryin' in the chapel"" (which has
""you"" both ways, as quasi-religious, sanctified sex, or this world and the
next at once). But woven into that are the facts that Southern freedom music and
the stirrings of civil rights were gospel-based, and so soul was laced with that
as well. This worldly yet striving music--while extremely heartfelt--was utterly
black and unsalable until the Elvis of Gospel, Sam Cooke, crossed over to ""the
devil's music,"" sending ""shock waves through the worlds of both gospel and
pop. ""Cooke's repertoire went through many changes, but he'd learned literally
how to use his soul-stirrings to heat up his female listeners at the Copa; he
was ready for major stardom at last when he died of three gunshot wounds in a
lurid motel incident. Ray ""the Genius"" Charles is credited equally with Cooke
for bringing gospel to pop, though the blind Charles always regarded himself as
more adult, singing songs built on a despair unmatched by the naked kitsch of
soul. Other giants springing up were James Brown, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke,
Aretha Franklin and Al Green. Guralnick also covers the business of soul music
in great depth, since soul eventually found itself competing for the same dollar
as rock and pop and r&b, all of which changed the nature of soul. A touch too
serious, but chockablock with first-hand chat and marvelous anecdotes. Selected
discography.
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