If Otis Redding dominated 60s soul, Al Green bestrode the 70’s thanks to a voice that glided and levitated, spiralling into a delicate falsetto just as you…
Browsing: Soul music
Al Wilson was born in Meridian, Mississippi, in June 1939 and sang in a church choir and his own gospel quartet before moving to San…
One of the greatest female singers of Southern soul music, Ann Peebles grew up singing gospel in her father’s Baptist choir, idolising and occasionally backing the…
Daughter of Detroit’s acclaimed Baptist preacher, the Reverend C L Franklin, Aretha Louise Franklin was just into her twenties when she signed to Atlantic in November 1966,…
Born in Atlanta, Arthur Conley was discovered by Otis Redding in 1965 when singing with Arthur and The Corvets. Otis produced many of Conley’s records…
As an 18-year-old in 1965, Barbara Mason captured the innocent stirrings of adolescence on the self-penned Yes I’m Ready, a US #3 R&B hit which is…
Ben E King was born Benjamin Earl Nelson in Henderson, North Carolina, in September 1938. After moving to New York in 1949 he was reputedly…
Berry Gordy’s family, like thousands of others, had moved from the southern states of the USA to Detroit, whose automobile industry in the years between…
Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1939, Betty Everett was playing piano and singing in church by the age of nine. In 1957, she moved to Chicago…
Bettye LaVette was born Betty Haskins in Muskegon, Michigan on 29 January 1946. Raised in Detroit, she was signed by a local record producer called Johnnie…
Bobby Byrd and Earl Nelson had both been members of a prolific doo-wop group in Los Angeles called The Hollywood Flames, while Byrd also had…
Bobby Womack first began singing in the 1950s along with his brothers in a gospel group and later in an ensemble known as The Valentinos.…
In 1962 the hottest new instrumentalists were Booker T and The MGs – Two blacks and two whites, they were the studio band for Stax records, but…
Perhaps the most beautiful woman to step in front of a microphone at the studio, there was never a greater, more unfulfilled talent at Motown…
The effervescent vocals of General Norman Johnson did much to secure Chairmen Of The Board a major hit with Give Me Just A Little More Time in…
Chris Clark was a 17-year-old, 6-foot platinum blonde when she arrived at Motown’s Detroit headquarters in 1963 to audition for Berry Gordy Jnr. The Motown…
Chuck Jackson racked up a string of uptown New York soul monsters on Scepter’s subsidiary label Wand in the early 60s, but by 1967, the…
Clyde Lensley McPhatter was born on 15 November 1933 in the tobacco town of Durham, North Carolina. He was one of ten children for George…
Born in Chicago in June 1942, Curtis joined a vocal harmony group called The Roosters in 1956 with his friend Jerry Butler. The other members…
David Ruffin, who Marvin Gaye characterised as “one of the true artists of Motown”, was among the most conspicuously gifted singers in all of soul…