Presents a history of R&B music in the United States, profiles the genre's most notable past and present stars, and features song and album suggestions.

From an early age, Bill Medley had a passion for music. School glee club and amateur singing contests soon gave way to the albums of Ray Charles and Little Richard. That raw R&B influence would profoundly shape Medley's musical future. As the pioneering 'blue-eyed soul" group the Righteous Brothers, Bill Medley and late partner Bobby Hatfield sang such huge hits as '(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," 'Unchained Melody," and 'You've Lost That Lovin'...

"A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem"-- A soul icon and the southern music he helped popularize come to life in this moving requiem. When he died in one of rock's string of tragic plane crashes, Otis Redding was only twenty-six, yet already the avatar of a new kind of soul music. The beating heart of Memphis-based Stax Records, he had risen to fame belting out gospel-flecked blues in stage performances...

Love, Peace, and Soul tells the story of the television phenomenon known as Soul Train, a show created in the land of bell bottoms, afros, and soul power; a show that became the touchstone of the Baby Boomer generation. Don Cornelius, host and owner of the show, was one of the coolest cats on television. With his platform shoes, wide neckties, and mellifluous voice, he showed the world just how corny American Bandstand was in comparison. In 2012,...

A pop music critic relates how his love for soul music was fostered by records his father left behind when his parents divorced, and explores how he tried to make sense of living in Arkansas during the 1980s and 1990s.

1968: in that single year, MLK and RFK were assassinated, Chicago rioted, Nixon triumphed, and Tet exploded. The top music acts were the Beatles, the Doors, Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye. Man circled the Moon. From Civil Rights to Vietnam, from rock & roll to rocket science, 1968 stands out as a concentrated dose of everything we think of as the Sixties.

"THE MEANING OF SOUL discusses Black resilience and innovation through soul music and soul logic. Emily Lordi analyzes soul music and musicians from the 1960s, the 1970s, and after, bridging the different valences of soul as a way of moving through the world. The book encompasses soul's racial-political meanings while being sensitive to the details of the music and small details that shaped artists' lives and their relationship to soul. Chapter 1...