
Soul was the 1960 transmutation of R&B. Unlike Detroit's slicker Motown Sound, which was aimed at a mass (ie., national and mostly white) market, sweet soul music was down-home secularized black gospel music. Pioneered by Ray Charles and then by Sam Cooke (formerly of the Soul Stirrers), full-blown soul was exemplified by Southern-rooted black performers like Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, Percy Sledge, Sam and Dave, and Joe Tex. Their audience included white Southern college students, who have since embalmed it as "beach music." Many of the session musicians were white boys from recording studios in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, and a guitar obbligato on Aretha Franklin's "Think" sounds an awful lot like "Dixie." But the collaboration worked: New York producer Jerry Wexler said it was because "they were all Southerners." This sample comes from Chess Records' Southern Soul Stock, an anthology album of '60s and '70s soul classics. The artist is an all-girl group from Memphis, Barbara and the Browns, singing "Plenty of Room." (AU Format) (Real Audio Format)