Various Artists – The Best Of Soul (1968)

Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. 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. It also had a resurgence in the mid-to late 1990s with the subgenre neo-soul, which added modern production elements and influence from hip-hop.

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 style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an African-American culture. The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music that boasted pride in being black, and being such a creative genre of music, it emerged from the power struggle to increase black Americans’ awareness of their African ancestry. Soul music also combines different elements of music which includes gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz.

Soul music dominated the U.S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and many 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. Many soul artists gained popularity due to the domination of soul music in the R&B charts. Among these artists were Ray Charles, James Brown and the soul group the Temptations. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic and progressive rock, among other genres, leading to psychedelic and progressive soul. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.

The key subgenres of soul include 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 well as psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music. (wikipedia)

And here´s a fine compilation album, a special German edition for the “Deutscher Schallplattenclub”, a record club like Bertelsmann.

The album gives a good overview of the soul scene at the time … If you don’t know it yet, you have the opportunity to discover this wonderful music here.

Tracklist:
01. Wilson Pickett: Stagger Lee (Traditional) 2.20
02. Percy Sledge: My Special Prayer (Scott) 3.02
03. Bar-Kays: Soul Finger (Cauley/Alexander/King/Jones/Caldwell/Cunniggham) 2.20
04. Sam & Dave: Soul Man (Porter/Hayes) 2.37
05. Otis (Redding) & Carla (Thomas): Tramp (McCracklin/Fulsom) 2.59
06. Arthur Conley: Shake, Rattle & Roll (Stone) 2.20
07. Aretha Franklin: Respect (Redding) 2.24
08. Otis Redding: Shake (Cooke) 2.35
09. Wilson Pickett: Funky Broadway (Christian) 2.34
10. Aretha Franklin: Chain Of Fools (Covay) 2.45
11. King Curtis: Memphis Soul Stew (Curtis) 2.57
12. Joe Tex: Woman Like That, Yeah (Tex) 3.09
13. Percy Sledge: Take Time To Know Her (Davis) 2.50
14. Otis Redding: (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay (Redding/Steve Cropper) 2.35

02. is erroneously credited to Joe Simon, who didn’t write it but had a minor hit with the song in 1967. The actual writer is Wini Scott.

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The liner notes (in German):

Various Artists – That´s Soul 1 (1967)

Soul music (often referred to simply as soul) is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. 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 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 lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style 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 many 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 rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.

The key subgenres of soul include the Detroit (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; psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music; as well as categories such as blue-eyed soul, which is soul music performed by white artists; British soul; and Northern soul, rare soul music played by DJs at nightclubs in Northern England. …

but in the Sixties Soul was a very imporant part of the international music scene … it was the golden age of Soul !

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. Each 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.”

Aretha Franklin is widely known as the “Queen of Soul”

Ben E. King also achieved success in 1961 with “Stand By Me”, a song directly based on a gospel hymn.[5] By the mid-1960s, the initial successes of Burke, King and others had been surpassed by new soul singers, including Stax artists such as Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, who mainly recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. According to Jon Landau:[20]

“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 known as “Mr. Pitiful” and earned a reputation as the leading 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 as “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”, “Respect” (written 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 many 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 late 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 sophisticated 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. (by wikipedia)

And here´s is he legendary Soul samper “That´s Soul 1” from 1967 … released by Atalntic Records, many tracks on this album are from the legendary Stax label:

Stax Records is an American record label, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961 and shared its operations with Volt Records, a sister label created to avoid the impression of favoritism among radio stations playing their records.

Stax was influential in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. Stax also released gospel, funk, and blues recordings. Renowned for its output of blues music, the label was founded by two siblings and business partners, Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton (STewart/AXton = Stax).

It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label’s house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South. According to ethnomusicologist Rob Bowman, the label’s use of “one studio, one equipment set-up, the same set of musicians and a small group of songwriters led to a readily identifiable sound. It was a sound based in black gospel, blues, country, and earlier forms of rhythm and blues. It became known as southern soul music.”

Following the death of Stax’s biggest star, Otis Redding, in 1967, and the severance of the label’s distribution deal with Atlantic Records in 1968, Stax continued primarily under the supervision of a new co-owner, Al Bell. Over the next five years, Bell expanded the label’s operations significantly, in order to compete with Stax’s main rival, Motown Records in Detroit. During the mid-1970s, a number of factors, including a problematic distribution deal with CBS Records, caused the label to slide into insolvency, resulting in its forced closure in late 1975.

In 1977, Fantasy Records acquired the post-1968 Stax catalogue and selected pre-1968 recordings. Beginning in 1978, Stax (now owned by Fantasy) began signing new acts and issuing new material, as well as reissuing previously recorded Stax material. However, by the early 1980s, no new material was being issued on the label, and for the next two decades, Stax was strictly a reissue label.

After Concord Records acquired Fantasy in 2004, the Stax label was reactivated, and is today used to issue both the 1968–1975 catalog material and new recordings by current R&B and soul performers. Atlantic Records continues to hold the rights to the vast majority of the 1959–1968 Stax material. (by wikipedia)

Yes … a legendary sampler … and if you would like to know, what´s soul all about … listen to this record !

Back cover (2nd pressing)

Tracklist:
01. Wilson Pickett: Mustang Sally (Rice) 3.08
02. Carla Thomas: B-a-b-y (Hayes/Porter) 2.56
03. Arthur Conley: Sweet Soul Music (Redding/Conley) 2.22
04. Percy Sledge: When A Man Loves A Woman (Lewis/Wright) 2.56
05. Sam & Dave: I Got Everything I Need (Cropper/Floyd/Isbell) 3.00
06. Ben E. King: What Is Soul (Gallo/King) 2.22
07. Aretha Franklin: I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (Shannon) 2.50
06. Otis Redding: Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song) (Redding/Cropper) 2.44
07. Eddie Floyd: Knock On Wood (Cropper/Floyd) 3.07
08. Solomon Burke: Keep Looking (Burke) 2.41
09. Wilson Pickett: Land Of 1000 Dances (Kenner) 2.28
10. Joe Tex: Papa Was Too (Tex) 2.44
11. Percy Sledge: Warm And Tender Love (Robinson) 3.23
12. The Drifters: Baby What I Mean (Hamilton/Sheldon) 2.36

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Original back cover (1st pressing)

 

I got this item from Mr. Sleeve … what a great gift … thanky you very much !!!!

And here are the lyrics of “Sweet Soul Music”:

Do you like good music?
Huh, that sweet soul music
Just as long as it’s swinging
Oh, yeah

Way out here on the floor, ya’ll
Ah, going to a go-go
Dancing with the music
Oh, yeah

Spotlight on Lou Rawls, ya’ll
Ah, don’t he look boss, ya’ll
Singing ‘Love’s a Hurtin Thing’, yall
Oh, yeah

Spotlight on Sam and Dave, ya’ll
Oh, don’t they look great y’all?
Singing, ‘Hold On I’m Coming’
Oh, yeah

Spotlight on Wilson Pickett, now
That wicked Wilson Pickett
Singing, ‘Mustang Sally’
Oh, yeah

Spotlight on Otis Redding, now
Singing ‘Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa’
‘Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa’
Oh, yeah
Get it Otis

Spotlight on James Brown, ya’ll
He’s the king of them all, ya’ll
He’s the king of them all, ya’ll
Oh, yeah

Do ya like good music?
That sweet soul music
Just long as it’s swinging
Oh, yeah

I got to get the feeling
I got to get the feeling
Do ya like good music?
That sweet soul music
Help me get the feeling
I want to get the feeling
Otis Redding’s got the feeling

James Brown he got the feeling
Oh, I love good music