Soul music has always been a genre of music beaming with popularity and holding significance to communities. 

Now, with soul music making a comeback, it has kept its roots of storytelling and instruments, but now with more roots in other genres.

Soul music originated in the late 1950s, taking inspiration from other genres such as blue clubs, churches and street corners, R&B, and gospel music. 

Some of the most influential people of the beginning of the genre, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, influenced the genre with their vocals, rhythms, and storytelling, and helped the genre skyrocket in popularity and solidify itself. 

Soul music gets its famous name from the purpose of what the genre is trying to achieve; resonating with the soul of the listener. 

Some of the first soul songs were gospel songs that had a tempo change, making them secular. 

Up-tempo gospel and church music had now become up-tempo soul songs with slower gospel songs becoming love songs.

Examples of this include Ray Charles’ 1954 hit song “What’d I say”.

In “What’d I Say” by Charles, he uses gospel “call and response” in order to exchange sultry “Oohs” and “Aahs” with the Raelettes, his backing singers. 

By the late 1960s, artists and bands such as The Supremes and Miracles topped the charts with their lyrics and upbeat rhythms. 

Sam Cooke had taken a similar approach, who joined a gospel group called “Soul Stirrers”. His voice can be heard on his first hit “You Send Me” which became so popular it replaced “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley on the top of the music charts.

However, the genre began to diminish as Four-to-the-floor rhythms by artists such as Smokey Robinson and productions such as Holland-Dozier began to take center stage.

With these new genres of music beginning to top charts, soul music took to the back burner and became a genre mostly popular in Black communities, no longer seeing the spotlight it used to. 

As the genre began to lose its chokehold, artists of the time such as Norman Whitefield and Barrett Strong began to mix soul with social commentary in “The Temptations” as a hope to revive the genre.

Other artists began to do the same thing with Stevie Wonder issuing the album “What’s Going On”. Sam Cooke’s album “A Change is Gonna Come” is widely known and acknowledged as political soul music. 

With this, soul music took a turn and went from “Upbeat music” to music with a purpose. 

The Staple Singers, who in the early 1960’s sang about the political protests to end segregation and for Black pride, inspired Bob Dylan to write music focused on politics and to advocate for equality across all races.

Soul music had officially become a signal for Black power and political revolution, with this music being played at rallies and protests. 

Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect” in 1967 and James Brown’s “Say it Loud I’m Black and I’m Proud” in 1968 also gave revival to the music genre.

These songs mixed upbeat tempos that were popular back in the day and Black power, becoming staples and monumental in being able to bring the genre back to its popularity. 

Around this time is also when Soul music began to be separated from country music and similar genres. 

While R&B took a more synthesized approach and country took to more acoustics, Soul took to political messages and trumpets, creating the perfect blend of social commentary and rhythms.

One of the staple albums of Soul music is 1967 “I Never Loved a Man the way I Love You” by Aretha Franklin. 

Recorded by Rick Hall’s “Fame Studios”, it provided the album a starting point for “Cheatin’ soul”, a subgenre of Soul music which helped platform artists Candi Stanton and Clarence Carter.

 Soul music didn’t stay the same all throughout the country however, with different regions adapting Soul music to fit with society and the current popular rhythms. 

With this, more subgenres of soul music began to be produced, allowing the roach of Soul to resonate with more people outside of the scope it already had.

For instance, in Memphis, label “Stax Records” took a more gritty approach to Soul. This was headed by Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, and Carla Thomas.

In 1969, Isaac Hayes invented Symphonic Soul with “Hot Buttered Soul”. Creating a more slow tempo of Soul music which resonated with jazz and R&B lovers.

In Chicago, Soul took a more “sweet falsetto” approach, with artist Curtis Mayflied and his band The Impressions being the cover for Chicago Soul music. 

Mayfield began to get involved in politics in the 1960s. With this, he wrote about Black problems such as poverty, racism, and injustice. His music became the soundtrack for Superfly.

In Philadelphia, soul took on a smoother approach with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff having the Delfonics and the O’Jays singing mixed with sweeping strings and brass instruments. 

In the Deep South, two styles of soul had developed, “Deep Soul” and “Memphis Soul”.

Both of these styles were produced by Hi Records and Stax Records. Stax Records produced classic R&B and Soul songs such as “In the Midnight Hour” and “Soul Man” as they focused on Deep Soul.

Hi Records focused on Memphis Soul with chart topping songs such as “Hold on, I’m Comin’”.

Soul music was the foundation for other more well known genres such as hip hop and funk. 

Funk music was pioneered by James Brown who used Soul’s rhythms to make dance music while hip hop began when DJs started rapping over Soul’s well known grooves. 

However even with his burst, Soul music was too popular to burn out. With singers George Michael and Sade have some of the biggest Soul hit songs to date. 

Michael Jackson and Prince also led for a new Burt in Soul, with their styles being a blend of Soul and Funk, this led to the coinage of the term “R&B” despite already existing. 

Throughout the 1980s, singer Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston began producing a slower and sultry commercial soul that was known as “Contemporary R&B”.

However many listeners and artists new to the scene longed for the raw and uncensored rhythm and lyrics of the 60s and 70s soul and funk scene. 

This led to the mixing of hip hop beats, soul rhythms and lyrics to create “Neo Soul” in the early 1990s.

Neo Soul and Contemporary R&B still have mainstream media in a chokehold. However “Retro Soul” and “Alternative R&B” also began to make its name known in the early 2000s. 

British jazz singer Amy Winehouse helped solidify the genre by drawing inspiration from the sound of 60s soul in her song “Back to Black”. 

Alternative R&B is the latest addition to the subgenres of R&B and Soul. In the late 2000s, it was speared by artists such as The Weekend and Frank Ocean, who used electronic and acoustics to create beats which sang about depression, addiction, heartbreak, and other topics, reminiscent to the topics sang about when the genres began. 

Other artists such as SZA, Beyoncé, and Childish Gambino  have also kept the legacy of soul alive by using the melodies and rhythms of old R&B, and the lyricism that have solidified these genres of music not only as monumental, but as key foundations for many of the genres we know and love today.

Even though Soul and R&B is not the same as it was in the 1950’s the legacy and importance of these genres still stands and has traveled the way for many popular artists and memorable songs that have made the music industry what it is today.