Dobie Gray was born Lawrence Victor Ainsworth although this has been disputed and his name has also been listed as Leonard Victor Ainsworth and also…
Browsing: Soul music
Born Donald Randolph in South Carolina in 1938, Don Covay moved to Washington in the early fifties where he performed with his family’s gospel group,…
Donny Hathaway was born in Chicago on 1 October 1945 but was raised in St Louis by his grandmother, gospel singer Martha Pitts. He was singing…
Born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien on 16 April 1939, Dusty Springfield was best known for her 1960s’ hits Son of A Preacher Man, I Only Want…
Charles Edwin Hatcher was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1942. He and his cousins, soul singers Roger and Willie Hatcher, moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where…
LA-native Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins) was born in Los Angeles on 25 January 1938. Her mother, Dorothy Hawkins, a 14-year-old groupie and jazz fan, put…
Born in St Louis on 3 July 1940, Fontella Bass began her career by playing the piano as a child in the funeral homes of…
The Four Tops got together at high school in 1954 and had been playing the Detroit club circuit since the mid-fifties, originally as The Four…
Gladys began winning talent contests at the age of four (she won television’s Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour at eight), and offers for a showbiz…
Born in 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Ike Turner played as a session guitarist and pianist with many renowned musicians including BB King, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. In…
Born Irma Lee in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, Thomas had been married twice and had four children by the time she was nineteen. Bandleader Tommy Ridgley discovered…
Jack Leroy “Jackie” Wilson, Jr. (born in Detroit on 9 June 1934) was an African-American singer who played an important part in the transition of…
Given the built-in obsolescence of pop stars, it is remarkable that the singer who made the biggest impact in 1970 should have still made world…
Born in a one-room shack in the pinewoods of Barnwell, South Carolina on 3 May 1933, James Joe Brown Jnr. was apparently stillborn and survived entry into…
Jimmy Ruffin was born in Collinsville, Mississippi in May 1936. He sang with his family’s gospel group, led by his minister father, before moving to…
Junior Walker was born Autrey de Walt Jr. in Blytheville, Arkansas, in 1931, and was a teenager in South Bend, Indiana when he began playing…
Martha Reeves, Rosalind Ashford and Annette Sterling started singing together at their Detroit high school as The Del-Phis. In 1962 Martha was working as a…
With an $800 loan from his family and a roster of unknown young Detroit singers, former record shop owner Berry Gordy Jnr (pictured below) started what…
Born in Tryon, North Carolina on 21 February 1933, Nina (real name Eunice Kathleen Waymon) attended the New York Juilliard Music School and began recording…
Hailing from Macon, Georgia, Otis Redding began his singing career when he won fifteen straight Sunday night talent shows in Macon. He joined Stax in 1962 and…