In the 1970s, Northern Soul held a pivotal position in British youth culture. Originating in the English North and Midlands in the late-1960s, by the mid-1970s it was attracting thousands of enthusiasts across the country. This book is a social history of Northern Soul, examining the origins and development of this music scene, its clubs, publications and practices. Northern Soul emerged in a period when working class communities were beginning to be transformed by deindustrialisation and the rise of new political movements around the politics of race, gender and locality. Locating Northern Soul in these shifting economic and social contexts of the English North and Midlands in the 1970s, the authors argue that people kept the faith not just with music, but with a culture that was connected to wider aspects of work, home, relationships and social identities. Drawing on an expansive range of sources, including oral histories, magazines and fanzines, diaries and letters, this book offers a detailed and empathetic reading of a working class culture that was created and consumed by thousands of young people in the 1970s. The authors highlight the complex ways in which class, race and gender identities acted as forces for both unity and fragmentation on the dancefloors of iconic clubs such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, Blackpool Mecca, the Torch in Stoke-on-Trent, the Catacombs in Wolverhampton and the Casino in Wigan. Marking a significant contribution to the historiography of youth culture, this book is essential reading for those interested in popular music and everyday life in postwar Britain. -- .

In 1963, sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Hawkins and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson traveled from the segregated South to New York City under the auspices of their manager, former pop singer Joe Jones. With their wonderful harmonies, they were an immediate success. To this day, the Dixie Cups' greatest hit, ""Chapel of Love,"" is considered one of the best songs of the past sixty years. The Dixie Cups seemed to have the world on a string. Their songs were lively and popular, singing on such topics as love, romance, and Mardi Gras, including the classic ""Iko Iko."" Behind the stage curtain, however, their real-life story was one of cruel exploitation by their manager, who continued to harass the women long after they finally broke away from his thievery and assault. Of the three young women, no one suffered more than the youngest, Rosa Hawkins, who was barely out of high school when the New Orleans teens were discovered and relocated to New York City. At the peak of their success, Rosa was a naive songstress entrapped in a world of abuse and manipulation. Chapel of Love: The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups explores the ups and downs of one of the most successful girl groups of the early 1960s. Telling their story for the first time, in their own words, Chapel of Love reintroduces the Louisiana Music Hall of Famers to a new audience.

Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with Moman and the group, as well as additional comments from the songwriters, sound engineers, and office staff, author Roben Jones creates a collective biography combined with a business history and a critical analysis of important recordings. She reveals how the personalities of the core group meshed, how they regarded newcomers, and how their personal and musical philosophies blended with Moman's vision to create timeless music based on themes of suffering and sorrow. Recording sessions with Elvis Presley, the Gentrys, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Box Tops, Joe Tex, Neil Diamond, B. J. Thomas, Dionne Warwick, and many others come alive in this book. Jones provides the stories behind memorable songs composed by group writers, such as "The Letter," "Dark End of the Street," "Do Right Woman," "Breakfast in Bed," and "You Were Always on My Mind." Featuring photographs, personal profiles, and a suggested listening section, Memphis Boys details a significant phase of American music and the impact of one amazing studio. Roben Jones of Gallipolis, Ohio, has published poetry in various magazines and in Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry, 1950-1999.

A No Depression Most Memorable Music Book of 2022 The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon. Christopher M. Reali's in-depth look at the fabled musical hotbed examines the events and factors that gave the Muscle Shoals sound such a potent cultural power. Many artists trekked to FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound in search of the sound of authentic southern Black music-and at times expressed shock at the mostly white studio musicians waiting to play it for them. Others hoped to draw on the hitmaking production process that defined the scene. Reali also chronicles the overlooked history of Muscle Shoals's impact on country music and describes the region's recent transformation into a tourism destination. Multifaceted and informed, Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals reveals the people, place, and events behind one of the most legendary recording scenes in American history.

The history of Soul music has been defined, first and foremost, by a succession of exceptional vocalists. It is impossible to conceive of the genre without them. This does not mean, however, that those who back singers, those who play instruments - bassists; drummers; guitarists; keyboardists; saxophonists - were reduced to nothing other than walk on parts. If Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding were able to move audiences, then their band members and arrangers, the likes of King Curtis and Booker T. Jones, played a key role in creating tracks that had commensurate emotional depth and technical ingenuity. These lesser known figures have heightened our listening pleasure. In Soul Unsung Kevin Le Gendre celebrates the contribution of players of instruments to soul. He analyses, in forensic detail, the inspiring creativity and imagination that several generations of musicians have brought to black pop, and highlights how they have broadened its sound canvas by adopting unusual stylistic approaches and embracing the latest available technology. Furthermore, the book offers insights into the state of contemporary soul and its relationship with jazz, rock and hip-hop. It is precisely because soul has not evolved in a vacuum that it has a canon that is enviably rich in variety. Soul Unsung shines a light on the plethora of mesmerising sounds that constitute this heritage and explains why they affect the listener as much as a great singer. Placing the focus squarely on the band, Le Gendre sets out to change perceptions of one of the great forms of expression to have marked popular culture in the 20th century, so that those who play are given, alongside those who sing, their rightful place in the pantheon of contemporary music.

This book explores how funk emerged in the mid-1960s at the very apex of the civil rights movement and shows how this music mirrored the broader changes taking place within the African-American community at a crucial political time and continues to this day to underpin remix culture. It traces the extent of the Brown legacy, musically, culturally and otherwise articulating decisive links between Brown's work and the DJ culture that embraced it so emphatically that Brown is now considered to be the most widely sampled African-American recording artist in history; indeed, we seem to have reached a point where many of Brown's refrains - the screams, the horn stabs, the "funky drummer" breakbeats - have been sampled so often as to have seemingly become part of the public domain. Traversing the past forty years of popular music, the book explores how the ubiquitous presence of Brown's groove, the affective and transformative capacities of a grunt or a well-timed "Good God" or punctuating scream take over where language fails and compel even the most sedate listener to take to the floor.

When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) was the conscience of a new kind of soul music. Berry Gordy built the first black-owned music empire at Motown but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story-still largely untold-is one of great conquest but grand tragedy. Now, in this transformative work, Mark Ribowsky contextualises Redding's life within the larger cultural movements of his era. What emerges in Dreams to Remember is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.

Bobby Womack was born on 4 March 1944, and died on 27 June 2014, aged 70. In a career that spanned two centuries and seven decades, the soul singer, songwriter and guitarist carved a niche for himself that has rarely been equalled, and never surpassed. He is, quite simply, irreplaceable. A phenomenally gifted musician, his incredible talent helped him to escape the ghetto and become a star, with 30 million record sales to his name. Yet behind his beautiful music lay a life scorched by tragedy. Having trod the harsh edge of the music business for decades, he finally told his explosive story in Midnight Mover. From finding success with his family gospel group The Valentinos and being whipped into shape by James Brown and Jimi Hendrix on the chitlin circuit , to recording with Wilson Pickett, Eric Clapton and Elvis Presley, Womack s stellar career wove a colourful path through the history of soul, rock and R&B music. His collaborations with other musicians read like a roll of honour, from Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles to The Rolling Stones and Damon Albarn. Success came at a price, however. Womack lost his friend and mentor Sam Cooke when the soul star was gunned down in a motel. A doomed marriage to Cooke s widow followed, which severely damaged his reputation in the music business. Tragically, he lost two sons, one to suicide, as well as his brother Harry to a brutal murder. His escape was to turn to drugs. Years of riotous abuse took their toll on Womack and those closest to him including Janis Joplin, who spent her last night drinking with the singer. But Womack s talent, searing guitar and soulful voice always survived. Cited as an influence by myriad musicians, even in death he remains the epitome of cool. Honest, insightful and unflinching, this is the authentic voice of the Midnight Mover, a supremely talented legend of music whose every day was lived to the full.

At the height of Tim Maia's soaring fame, he joined a radical, extraterrestrial-obsessed cult and created two plus albums of some of Brazil's-and the globe's-best funk and soul music. This book explores the career of the man often hailed as the James Brown or Barry White of Brazil, and the time of his radical transformation from a musician notorious for hedonistic living to a devoted follower of Manoel Jacinto Coelho's Rational Culture. After suddenly joining Coelho's cult in 1974 (which started first as an offshoot of the mystical Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda), Maia gave up drugs and alcohol, threw away his material possessions, and released Racional Vols. 1 & 2 in the attempt to convert the entirety of Brazil and the world to the revelation of Rational Culture. Thayer explores this strange, brief, yet incredibly prolific period of Maia's life wherein the reigning soul and funk artist of Brazil produced two albums, an EP, and a recently unearthed tape containing almost another full album of funky jams laced with spiritual content and scripture. For just as quickly as Maia became entranced with Coelho did he become disillusioned with the cult, disavowing and destroying everything having to do with that experience and refusing to speak of it for the rest of his life. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-based books and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.

I Hear a Symphony opens new territory in the study of Motown's legacy, arguing that the music of Motown was indelibly shaped by the ideals of Detroit's postwar black middle class; that Motown's creative personnel participated in an African-American tradition of dialogism in rhythm and blues while developing the famous "Motown Sound." Throughout the book, Flory focuses on the central importance of "crossover" to the Motown story; first as a key concept in the company's efforts to reach across American commercial markets, then as a means to extend influence internationally, and finally as a way to expand the brand beyond strictly musical products. Flory's work reveals the richness of the Motown sound, and equally rich and complex cultural influence Motown still exerts.

In Do You Remember? Celebrating Fifty Years of Earth, Wind & Fire, Trenton Bailey traces the humble beginning of Maurice White, his development as a musician, and his formation of Earth, Wind & Fire, a band that became a global phenomenon during the 1970s. By the early 1980s, the music industry was changing, and White had grown weary after working constantly for more than a decade. He decided to put the band on hiatus for more than three years. The band made a comeback in 1987, but White's health crisis soon forced them to tour without him. During the twenty-first century, the band has received numerous accolades and lifetime achievement and hall of fame awards. The band remains relevant today, collaborating with younger artists and maintaining their classic sound. Earth, Wind & Fire stood apart from other soul bands with their philosophical lyrics and extravagant visual art, much of which is studied in the book, including album covers, concerts, and music videos. The lyrics of hit songs are examined alongside an analysis of the band's chart success. Earth, Wind & Fire has produced twenty-one studio albums and several compilation albums. Each album is analyzed for content and quality. Earth, Wind & Fire is also known for using ancient Egyptian symbols, and Bailey thoroughly details those symbols and Maurice White's fascination with Egyptology. After enduring many personnel changes, Earth, Wind & Fire continues to perform around the world and captivate diverse audiences.

WINNER OF THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2018 In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul music. It was a deeply segregated city, ill at ease with the modern world and yet to adjust to the era of civil rights and racial integration. Stax Records offered an escape from the turmoil of the real world for many soul and blues musicians, with much of the music created there becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movements. The book opens with the death of the city's most famous recording artist, Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in the final days of 1967, and then follows the fortunes of Redding's label, Stax/Volt Records, as its fortunes fall and rise again. But, as the tense year unfolds, the city dominates world headlines for the worst of reasons: the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

This is the untold story of black music - its triumph over racism, segregation, undercapitalised record labels, media discrimination and political anxiety - told through the perspective of the most powerful office in the world: from Louis Armstrong's spat with President Eisenhower and Eartha Kitt's stormy encounter with Lady Bird Johnson to James Brown's flirtation with Nixon, Reaganomics and the 'Cop Killer' scandal. Moving, insightful and wide-ranging, Hey America! charts the evolution of sixties soul from the margins of American society to the mainstream, culminating in the rise of urban hip-hop and the dramatic stand-off between Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement.

First substantial overview of the life and career of Pharrell Williams, the foremost producer of the modern era, and performer in his own right. It follows him from his days growing up in Virginia, his meeting with musical partner Chad Hugo and formation of The Neptunes, through his collaborations with the great and the good of pop, rap and R&B, including Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Nelly and Kelis. It assesses his ground-breaking work with the radical rap-rock-pop band N*E*R*D, and his emergence as a solo superstar via Daft Punk's Get Lucky, Robin Thicke's controversial Blurred Lines and global mega-hit Happy. It delves behind the immaculate facade to find out what makes Williams one of the most driven and inventive musicians of the last 20 years

Starting in 1945 and continuing for the next twenty years, dozens of African American rhythm and blues artists made records that incorporated West Indian calypso. Some of these recordings were remakes or adaptations of existing calypsos but many were original compositions. Several, such as "Stone Cold Dead in de Market" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan or "If You Wanna Be Happy" by Jimmy Soul, became major hits in both the rhythm and blues and pop music charts. While most remained obscurities, the fact that over 170 such recordings were made during this time period suggests that there was sustained interest in calypso among rhythm and blues artists and record companies during this era. Rhythm & Blues Goes Calypso explores this phenomenon starting with a brief history of calypso music as it developed in its land of origin, Trinidad and Tobago, the music's arrival in the United States, a brief history of the development of rhythm and blues, and a detailed description and analysis of the adaptation of calypso by African American R & B artists during the period 1945-1965. The book also seeks to make musical and cultural connections between the West Indian immigrant community and the broader African American community that produced this musical hybrid. While the number of such recordings was small compared to the total number of rhythm and blues recordings, calypso was a persistent and sometimes a major component of early rhythm and blues for at least two decades and deserves recognition as part of the history of African American popular music.

When he died suddenly at the age of twenty-six, Otis Redding (1941-1967) was the conscience of a new kind of soul music. Berry Gordy built the first black-owned music empire at Motown but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story-still largely untold-is one of great conquest but grand tragedy. Now, in this transformative work, Mark Ribowsky contextualises Redding's life within the larger cultural movements of his era. What emerges in Dreams to Remember is not only a triumph of music history but also a reclamation of a visionary who would come to define an entire era.

In 2007, Ruben Molina published the first-ever history of Mexican-American soul and R&Bmusic in his book, Chicano Soul: Recordings and History of an American Culture. Ten yearslater, Chicano Soul remains an important and oft-referenced study of this vital but oftenoverlooked chapter of the greater American musical experience. Chicano soul music of the1950s and 1960s still reverberates today, both within Chicano communities and throughoutmany musical genres. Molina tells the story of the roots of Chicano soul, its evolution, and itsenduring cultural infl uence. "Brown-eyed soul" music draws on 1950s era jazz, blues, jump blues, rock 'n' roll, Latinjazz, and traditional Mexican music such as ranchera, norteno, and conjunto music. With its rareand gorgeous photos, record scans, concert bills, and impressive discography (to say nothingof its rich oral histories/interviews), it is one of those rare works that speaks to both generaland academic audiences.

In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was enacted through musical practices-inventive cover versions, falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time, and the leading role played by black women in this musical-intellectual tradition.

Starting in 1945 and continuing for the next twenty years, dozens of African American rhythm and blues artists made records that incorporated West Indian calypso. Some of these recordings were remakes or adaptations of existing calypsos, but many were original compositions. Several, such as "Stone Cold Dead in de Market" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan or "If You Wanna Be Happy" by Jimmy Soul, became major hits in both the rhythm and blues and pop music charts. While most remained obscurities, the fact that over 170 such recordings were made during this time period suggests that there was sustained interest in calypso among rhythm and blues artists and record companies during this era. Rhythm and Blues Goes Calypso explores this phenomenon starting with a brief history of calypso music as it developed in its land of origin, Trinidad and Tobago, the music's arrival in the United States, a brief history of the development of rhythm and blues, and a detailed description and analysis of the adaptation of calypso by African American R&B artists between 1945 and 1965. This book also makes musical and cultural connections between the West Indian immigrant community and the broader African American community that produced this musical hybrid. While the number of such recordings was small compared to the total number of rhythm and blues recordings, calypso was a persistent and sometimes major component of early rhythm and blues for at least two decades and deserves recognition as part of the history of African American popular music.

At its most intimate level, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us. At its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? That's the central question posed in New Atlantis, journalist John Swenson's beautifully detailed account of the musical artists working to save America's most colorful and troubled metropolis: New Orleans. The city has been threatened with extinction many times during its three-hundred-plus-year history by fire, pestilence, crime, flood, and oil spills. Working for little money and in spite of having lost their own homes and possessions to Katrina, New Orleans's most gifted musicians-including such figures as Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, "Trombone Shorty," and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux-are fighting back against a tidal wave of problems: the depletion of the wetlands south of the city (which are disappearing at the rate of one acre every hour), the violence that has made New Orleans the murder capitol of the U.S., the waning tourism industry, and above all the continuing calamity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (or, as it is known in New Orleans, the "Federal Flood"). Indeed, most of the neighborhoods that nurtured the indigenous music of New Orleans were destroyed in the flood, and many of the elder statesmen have died or been incapacitated since then, but the musicians profiled here have stepped up to fill their roles. New Atlantis is their story. Packed with indelible portraits of individual artists, informed by Swenson's encyclopedic knowledge of the city's unique and varied music scene-which includes jazz, R&B, brass band, rock, and hip hop-New Atlantis is a stirring chronicle of the valiant efforts to preserve the culture that gives New Orleans its grace and magic.

A lively and engaging chronicle of the triumphant rise of Sharon Jones a one of the most authentic purveyors of American soul music since James Brown a ELong Slow Train: The Soul Music of Sharon Jones and the Dap-KingsE traces her roots from gospel to soul to funk and beyond.THAfter many years of struggling on the periphery of the music industry and being told by label executives and producers that she was too short too old too fat and too black to make it as a headlining performer Jones was finally discovered in 1996 by the Brooklyn-based revivalist label EDaptone RecordsE. The rest is EherstoryE. As the dynamic frontline singer for the stellar soul band the Dap-Kings Jones's career ascended rapidly establishing both the band and the label with a cult-like following for her special brand of gospel funk.THFrom 2002 until 2016 when Jones succumbed to pancreatic cancer she and her band toured globally and released a flock of singles and eight full-length albums. (During that time they were also tapped by Amy Winehouse's producer Mark Ronson to be the studio outfit for their Grammy Award-winning album EBack to BlackE.) In 2015 Jones was profiled in the popular documentary Miss Sharon Jones! directed by Barbara Kopple as the unstoppable soul queen continued to deliver explosive live concert performances even while undergoing medical treatment.THThis book offers a heartfelt appreciation for a bighearted star who beat the odds and did it all EherE way.

From the young Black teenager who built a bass guitar in woodshop to the musician building a solo career with Motown Records-Prince's bassist BrownMark on growing up in Minneapolis, joining Prince and The Revolution, and his life in the purple kingdom In the summer of 1981, Mark Brown was a teenager working at a 7-11 store when he wasn't rehearsing with his high school band, Phantasy. Come fall, Brown, now called BrownMark, was onstage with Prince at the Los Angeles Coliseum, opening for the Rolling Stones in front of 90,000 people. My Life in the Purple Kingdom is BrownMark's memoir of coming of age in the musical orbit of one of the most visionary artists of his generation. Raw, wry, real, this book takes us from his musical awakening as a boy in Minneapolis to the cold call from Prince at nineteen, from touring the world with The Revolution and performing in Purple Rain to inking his own contract with Motown. BrownMark's story is that of a hometown kid, living for sunny days when his transistor would pick up KUXL, a solar-powered, shut-down-at-sundown station that was the only one that played R&B music in Minneapolis in 1968. But once he took up the bass guitar-and never looked back-he entered a whole new realm, and, literally at the right hand of Twin Cities musical royalty, he joined the funk revolution that integrated the Minneapolis music scene and catapulted him onto the international stage. BrownMark describes how his funky stylings earned him a reputation (leading to Prince's call) and how he and Prince first played together at that night's sudden audition-and never really stopped. He takes us behind the scenes as few can, into the confusing emotional and professional life among the denizens of Paisley Park, and offers a rare, intimate look into music at the heady heights that his childhood self could never have imagined. An inspiring memoir of making it against stacked odds, experiencing extreme highs and lows of success and pain, and breaking racial barriers, My Life in the Purple Kingdom is also the story of a young man learning his craft and honing his skill like any musician, but in a world like no other and in a way that only BrownMark could tell it.

Raised by his grandmother in Tennessee, Gil Scott-Heron's journey from humble beginnings to becoming one of the most uncompromising and influential songwriters of his generation is a remarkable one. In this, his heartfelt, beautifully written and posthumously published memoir, we are given bright insights into the music industry, New York, the civil-rights movement, modern America, governmental hypocrisy, Stevie Wonder and our wider place in the world. It is also a fitting testament to the generous brilliance of Gil Scott-Heron and to the Spirits that guided him.

The music of 'Motown' needs no introduction. Berry Gordy's record label became a style unto itself, producing hit after suave, sassy and sophisticated hit, and shaped the careers of so many of the greatest musicians of all time. The label produced more US number-one hits than the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys combined. Now, and with fresh new insights and an incredible visual narrative, the official, visual history of this momentous contribution to music and American culture is told in full. This book delves deep into the success stories of Motown's powerhouse creative team, including the Holland-Dozier-Holland triumvirate, and unpicks backstories of the Motown musicians envied by many, and covered by the rest. The roster includes Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, the Jackson 5, The Temptations and Martha Reeves & The Vandellas. Motown: The Sound of Young America is dense with information and materials gathered from the personal accounts and archives of many of the key players. It is a spectacular labour of love befitting an incredible story.