Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 in Music Mania
Northern Soul Funk
R&B Soul Music Legends
Some say that the only difference between the rhythm and blues (R&B) and gospel is with gospel you sing "Oh Lord," while with Rhythm and Blues soul music you sing "Oh Baby." Gospel music was the root beginnings of soul music however it is not merely the root that make R&B what it is today.
R& B soul music came to life as its own genre during the 50's. While its origins may have began around the northern cities of America like Chicago it wasn't long before other cities followed suit like Memphis, Detroit, New York, Florence, and Philadelphia.
Many artists throughout the years helped develop what is known as R&B soul music such as artist like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Luther Vandrose, James Brown, and Issac Hayes to mention just a few.
Soul music origin's came from the influence of gospel music and the more traditional R&B sounds. The R&B soul sound of Memphis was more influenced by the gospel mix in cities like Memphis, than was the rhythm and blues soul of Detroit, which came up to become the smooth, polished sounds of Motown by artist such as Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Marvin Gaye.
If were to have to pick the top ten all time best R&B Soul artists one would be hard pressed to limit the list to ten. You could take into consideration the artists contributions to the music industry, however, most R&B artists have contributed in one fashion or another.
Early top soul artists would have to include Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, and Elvis. Then as soul music took on a bit more groove to it and became known more by Motown/Soul in the late 60's and 70's you would have to add artists names such as Nina Simone, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown.
However, that leaves out a lot of influential R&B soul artists that have contributed so much to the still existing sound of rare soul music found in may of the more current soundtracks of today's artists like Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Chaka Kahn, Brian McKnight, Kenny G, and R. Kelly. The list could go on forever, as I am sure many of you are aware. That is not even mentioning the soul artist groups that helped to keep the love alive. There is something about some good old rare soul music that will never leave you, and always have you wanting more.
About the Author
Tex Johnson runs the highly popular R&B and Rare Soul Grooves
website featuring Soul Music TV. Want to watch FREE 24 hour
Soul music Internet TV and receive 4 FREE Rare Soul CD Samplers?
Then visit: http://www.raresoulgrooves.com/artists
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Can anyone recomend some good northern soul compilations?
I'd like to think of myself as a person with extremely broad musical tastes. Recently one of my friends gave me an album "The Trip" by St Ettiene - it is a great mix of funk and Northern Soul. Any suggestions to help broaden my musical knowledge on this front?
Yep sure. There's a good CD called 'The Best Northern Soul All-Nighter Ever' which is a good introduction and contains a lot of the obvious classic tracks. For rarer stuff The Talcum Soul CDs are good collections of hard to find classic Northern soul, and you can't go wrong with anything on the GoldSoul label, such as their 'Best of Northern Soul' series. If you'd like to learn more about this fascinating scene then I recommend you visit the GoldSoul site and the other links below. The last link is a radio station that plays only Northern Soul, which should help you discover stuff you haven't heard. Keep the faith.
