-Soul Music-

you need to start listening to some blues and *especially*, given the things you've just said, some gospel as well. i'll hook you up if you drop over to my yard sometime over the next couple of weeks.

luka said:

sometimes obvious things are the best things.
you can keep your bleepy electro wank and your european avant garde composers and free improv noise, your japanese out rock and all the rest of it, gimmie 3 minutes of the sublime, with horns!

Click to expand...

sometimes this is true. i do, on occasion listen to 'trouble man' (song, not album) on repeat and think 'fucking hell'

i always think soul music when *recorded* touches a theoretical/occult nerve.

if you think as the voice as the perfect manifestation of the spirit unbounded by flesh, then SOUL music, the engraving of souls on wax is the perfect encapsulation of the idea of the transmigration of the spirit.

i don't think the concept works so neatly with any other music (closely followed by the blues, but the blues wasn't originally a music designed to be recorded, wheras it's arguable soul was). Maybe enjoying soul music is mostly about the liberation from one's flesh?

innit.

i was listening to one of dave godin's compilations over breakfast this morning and it reminded me,nothing beats soul music, nothing.

Click to expand...

I think those four Dave Godins compilations are quite simply the best compilations ever made. They're just incredible.

WOEBOT said:

i don't think the concept works so neatly with any other music (closely followed by the blues, but the blues wasn't originally a music designed to be recorded, wheras it's arguable soul was). Maybe enjoying soul music is mostly about the liberation from one's flesh?

Click to expand...

that's a real interesting point re the intentions behind the recording. however, a lot of blues and gospel, especially the stuff like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and what have you have a real Lomaxy field recording quality to them which i find phenomenally eerie and absolutely sublime in every sense of the word. i know this is digressing a little but there's a compilation called Kentucky Mountain Music: Classic Recordings of the 1920s and 1930s that has the same effect on me. It's amazing; all these twangy nasal songs sung on porches or in church (with real strong crossover with some blues and, especially explicitly, gospel - just a lot more out-of-tune, heavily accented and strange) by hillbilly white people that were never meant to be recorded but sill act as these amazing one-off aural snapshots. they really feel like something of that time and space has been captured. as with nothing i've ever heard before, it feels like listening to ghosts. of course, that's soul, too.

stelfox said:

that's a real interesting point re the intentions behind the recording. however, a lot of blues and gospel, especially the stuff like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and what have you have a real Lomaxy field recording quality to them which i find phenomenally eerie and absolutely sublime in every sense of the word. i know this is digressing a little but there's a compilation called Kentucky Mountain Music: Classic Recordings of the 1920s and 1930s that has the same effect on me. It's mazing, all these twangy nasal songs sung on porches or in church (with real strong crossover with some blues and, especially explicitly, gospel - just a lot more out-of-tune, heavily accented and strange) that was never meant to be recorded but captured these amazing one-off aural snapshots. as with nothing i've ever heard before, it feels like listening to ghosts. of course, that's soul, too.

Click to expand...

i get this kind of feeling from roots reggae too. strange, because i'm not religious in any way and most of the time recoil from these kind of references in music. but theres something about a lot of reggae that really appeals to my soul at a primordal level.

having said that, though, otis is my absolute favourite singer in the world ever, to get back lo luke's point and i agree with derek. you won't find much better in the way of comps than all of dave godin's deep soul treasures. i find it beautiful music to listen to on a crisp, cold, sunny winter sunday for some reason.

one doesn't immediately think of young white females of Jewish and Italian descent when one thinks of soul music, but Gonna Take A Miracle, the album Laura Nyro made with LaBelle, is my favorite soul disc of all time...(at least for this week)...following in hot pursuit are The Belle Album, by Al Green, and Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul...(his cover of "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" is unsettlingly good)...lately, I've been listening to a lot of Eddie Hinton's solo stuff...(he was the main guitarist in the Muscle Shoals session band)...oh, and both of the Jeb Loy Nichols-curated Country Got Soul compilations...

...and yes, soul music does seem to be totally appropriate for sunny winter sunday mornings, while folk seems more suited for sunny summer sunday mornings...(something about the relative arid-ness/dessicated quality of folk music, better suited for the dry season)...

Didn't think I'd get the chance to mention my Dad twice in one week on here but I'm really thinking Luka ought to meet the guy.

His record collection is almost entirely based around soul music, aretha, curtis, otis, temps, 4tops etc. In fact my strongest early music memories are nearly all motown/stax. This is not a guy who is in any way cool and would not be interested in anything other than straight down the line soul music.

Years ago there used to be a robbie vincent radio show on capital, i think, on a sunday evening - i couldn't phone the old man whilst it was on!

once again i took what i needed from his collection - an absolute love of isaac hayes and al green and stevie wonder but not his penchant for millie jackson. I've occasionally offered him modern stuff but he's not that interested - i think he feels mariah and whitney in the early nineties were the end.

if he were asked who is the name that should be mentioned on this list he would definitely say early George Benson

there's certain free jazz that hits me in pretty much the sort of simple, direct & raw way described in the first post, particularly Black Woman by Sonny Sharrock, Linda Sharrock's singing on that is about the most incredible i've heard. i'd urge anyone who hasn't heard it to check it out.

some random thoughts....

i think the 'science' of soul music, particularly production is generally overlooked in favour of all soul's 'humanist' properties. all that stuff about being 'guttural' and emotional and being emotionally pure and all that stuff is what everyone zeroes in on when talking about soul when really, it takes a hell of a lot of practice, control and craft to really make good soul music or rather, be a good vocalist. i partially blame the artists for encouraging this perception of soul as being 'all from the gut' or whatever, as if its some magical thing that takes no work and is THAT easy. also, i dont really think ALL soul singers by genre default transmit directly from the heart bypassing the brain and voicing their feelings that directly - i certainly dont hear it in a lot of 60s singers who pride themselves on showbiz bravado and gruffness. its a lot of acting and entertaining going on there. i dont hear much vulnerability in much of that stuff. to be honest, when i hear just my imagination, i actually hear (admittedly tender) insincerity, theyre quite conscious of what theyre doing. i dont hear them 'losing themselves' in the song or 'just singing from the heart', i hear them thinking of getting in the pants of the women in the front row.

but yeah, anyway, i love soul music. i dont really like stax all that much though, or at least while i love otis (when hes not going OTT with the grunting and 'hahs' and 'huhs'), carla thomas et al as singers and thought the band were peerless, i always thought that motown's songs were better.

xxpost - ive never quite gotten into those deep soul albums. i think the production and the heaviness of the music is really affecting, and the vocals are uniformly top notch but always found the actual songs, or at least the lyrics, a bit boring. they were generally pretty derivative. all that powerful emotion the singers put into the songs seemed kinda pointless as the stories they were telling were generally pretty by the numbers. i heard the first volume quite a few years back though so maybe ill hear it with diff ears now, im not sure.

gumdrops said:

xxpost - ive never quite gotten into those deep soul albums...lyrics, a were generally pretty by the numbers.

Click to expand...

they're nearly all about lost love and yearning (not wedding music), but that's deep soul!

i know the point of 'deep soul' is really to focus on the vocal performance above all else but even then... i just dont hear or really *feel* that conviction. or at least i can hear them trying to channel melancholy but cos what theyre singing is so rote, it sounds a bit hollow. the singers DO sound all sad but it just feels put-on. like they have their 'sad voice' put on before they went in the studio. i know its meant to be all depressing but those singers arent especially distinctive and i think songs like marvin gaye's when did you stop loving me, stevie wonder's creepin' or donny hathaway's we're still friends are much more moving.

lol
yes that's it. i only like emotionally neutered music where the artists sound like they hate everything, care about nothing, despise humanity and feel nothing.
grime is great, yknow.

stelfox said:

gospel,

Classic Recordings of the 1920s and 1930s

Click to expand...

Chicago Sanctified Singers
Selah Jubilee Singers
Bessie Smith
Rev. Gary Davis
Thomas A. Dorsey
Heavenly Gospel Singers
Blind Willie Davis
Blind Joe Taggert
Second Zion Four
Mahalia Jackson

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!

to anyone looking for great soul/funk, i say check out slave, sos band, cherelle, freddie jackson, alexander o neal, surface, klymaxxx, the deele, ready for the world and zapp. the 80s is such an underrated period for soul.