Sweet Soul Music: 50-1 (Now counting down 100-51)

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81. Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love

Southern blues/R&B/soul performer who was one of the flagship artists for Stax. Partly credited with keeping the company afloat in the late 1960s and early 1970s after the death of its biggest star, Otis Redding.

Who's Making Love was his breakthrough single, recorded in 1968 and backed up by Booker T & The MG's.

 
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80. J.J. Barnes - Baby Please Come Back Home

A Detroit soul singer who had minimal success in his home town. He was signed to Motown but didn't release any music for them - they used him more as a song writer. The rumour was that Motown had signed him to keep him under wraps and that he sounded little too much like Marvin Gaye... This was his one hit single, released in 1967. He moved to England in the 1970s and had much more success there in the northern soul scene.



The B-side to this single Chains Of Love is a beauty and was covered by The Dirtbombs

 
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79. Bobby Hebb - Sunny

Hebb wrote this song following a double tragedy - JFK was assassinated then then next day Hebb's brother was stabbed to death outside a nightclub. Hebb was devastated by both events and many critics say that those events and critically the loss of his older brother inspired the lyrics and tune. According to Hebb, he merely wrote the song as an expression of a preference for a "sunny" disposition over a "lousy" disposition following the murder of his brother.

Hebb has said about "Sunny": "All my intentions were to think of happier times and pay tribute to my brother – basically looking for a brighter day – because times were at a low. After I wrote it, I thought 'Sunny' just might be a different approach to what Johnny Bragg was talking about in 'Just Walkin' in the Rain.'"

It was released in 1966 and was his biggest hit.



Live performance:

 
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78. The Parliaments - (I Wanna) Testify

The Detroit vocal group released this single in 1967 and it was their biggest hit. It featured George Clinton and the group later morphed into Funkadelic/Parliament. They re-recorded the song in 1974 as Parliament (simply called Testify) but this original version is far superior IMO.

 
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77. Tony Clarke - (They Call Me) A Wrong Man

Yet another tale of woe here. There sure seems to be a lot of these surrounding soul singers from this era. Clarke was from Detroit. He wrote some songs for Etta James, had a couple of hits himself, was actually in a movie with Sidney Poiter and died young.

In the wee hours of August 28, 1971, Clarke is alleged to have broken into the house of his estranged wife, with a tire jack in hand. However, his wife had a gun and, in an act of self-defense, shot him. Clarke was only 31 years old when he was killed.

 
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76. Jimmy Ruffin - Tell Me What You Want

Older brother of David Ruffin from The Temptations. Jimmy's solo career with Motown was split by national service. After leaving the Army in 1964, he returned to Motown, where he was offered the opportunity to join the Temptations. However, after hearing his brother David, they hired him for the job instead so Jimmy decided to resume his solo career.

What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted is by far his biggest and most famous song. It was actually written for The Spinners but Ruffin convinced the writers that he should record it. A brilliant song but the lavish strings aren't really my thing.

As Ruffin found success in the United States difficult to sustain, he began to concentrate instead on the British market. Seems to have been a a well-trodden path for soul singers at the time. Brokenhearted is a massive song no doubt but I prefer the groove of Tell Me What You Want. The song was released as a single in 1974, after he had left Motown.

 
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75. Eddie & Ernie - Bullets Don't Have Eyes

A soul duo from Phoenix, Arizona they were perhaps unfairly described as a poor man's Sam & Dave. Certainly unkind. They have some cracking tunes.

Their biggest problem is that their recordings were all over the place and difficult to get hold of - a variety of labels, some releases under different names other than Eddie & Ernie, a mish-mash of styles rather than a consistent sound and some really odd choices (eg a cover of Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay).

'Self Service' from 1964 when they were known as The New Bloods is perhaps the only known soul ballad ode to masturbation - ("I don't have no one to love me....so I'll have to serve myself..."). Just... odd. Not surprisingly they weren't very successful.

This song Bullets Don't Have Eyes as an example was never officially released - was only uncovered when some of their music got compiled and re-released in the 2000s.

Their back catalogue finally got a decent treatment in 2008 with the release of the Lost Friends album. Did a good job of rounding up their diverse portfolio... but inexplicably didn't include their only hit single - Time Waits For No One from 1965. Just bizarre. This is how I picture Eddie & Ernie:

13fj7m.jpg


Anywho. Love this song.

 
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74. Percy Sledge - Thief In The Night

Southern soul up next with Percy Sledge. The ballad When A Man Loves A Woman is his signature tune and was a hit, paving the way for his career to follow. I prefer this song though, which was a track from his 1966 album (also called When A Man Loves A Woman).

 
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73. Helene Smith - You Got To Be A Man

A lesser known southern soul singer next, with Helene Smith from Miami. Had a few minor hits in the 60s but her label went bankrupt so her career sort of died. She did have a comeback of sorts in the 70s but faded into obscurity.

Has some fairly light 'poppy' songs that I don't like but I really like this funky number with its JB horns.

 
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72. The Five Stairsteps - O-o-h Child

The 'first family of soul' hailed from Chicago and was made up of five brothers and sisters. This 1970 single is their most famous song. It's been covered a heap of times and used to good effect in movies like Boyz n the Hood and Guardians Of The Galaxy.

I also like one of their more uptempo numbers Ain't Gonna Rest (Till I Get You) but can't go past this uplifting anthem.

 
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71. J.J. Jackson - But, It's Alright

Song-writer for the Shangri-Las, Jimmy Witherspoon, Mary Wells, The Pretty Things, the Soul Sisters and others he was also a recording artist. Had a hit with this infectious dance smash from 1966 which was recorded in England with some of the UK's best jazz musicians.

 
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70. Howard Tate - Glad I Knew Better

The sublime tenor voice of the American soul singer Howard Tate lit up a string of immaculate recordings in the late 1960s. He is best known as the singer of Get It While You Can, an eloquent ballad cut in 1966 that failed to chart on release, but later became a hedonist anthem when Janis Joplin recorded it on her 1970 album Pearl.

Stop, another fantastic tune, was a minor hit in 1968 and was later recorded by Jimi Hendrix. In 1970 he recorded an album, Howard Tate's Reaction, for Turntable, but found out that the label was a front for the mafia.

Despite some great songs, Tate never enjoyed much good fortune in the music industry and drifted away from music after struggling with a drug addiction through the 70s. He stopped performing for more than 20 years. Yet his remarkable range, expressiveness and artistry meant fans of black American music remained in thrall to his recordings and when, after attempts to discover his whereabouts, he was found alive and well in 2001, there was much celebration – not least from Tate, who discovered that he by then possessed a loyal European fanclub.

This song appeared on his 1966 album, Get It While You Can.

 
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69. Fontella Bass - Rescue Me

A star for Chess Records out of Chicago, this 1965 single was her biggest hit.

Driven by a bubbly bass line, the song features Bass’s high-spirited voice in wholesomely amorous lyrics like “Come on and take my hand/Come on, baby, and be my man,” as well as some call-and-response moans that Bass later said resulted from a studio accident. “When we were recording that, I forgot some of the words. Back then, you didn’t stop while the tape was running, and I remembered from the church what to do if you forget the words. I sang, ‘Ummm, ummm, ummm,’ and it worked out just fine.”

 

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68. Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto

Hathaway signed with Atlantic Records in 1969 and with his first single, The Ghetto, in early 1970, Rolling Stone magazine marked him as a major new force in soul music.

His 1972 album Everything is Everything is considered a classic, as is his 1972 live album. He was a master of melisma, and his smoky voice wrapped superbly around his female duet partners, most notably Roberta Flack. Justin Timberlake calls (Another Song) All Over Again, from FutureSex/LoveSounds, "my homage to Donny Hathaway." It's easy to hear why Hathaway still appeals to modern-pop and neo-soul singers alike. Rolling Stone rated him at #49 on their best singers of all time list.

At the height of his career Hathaway was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was known to not take his prescribed medication regularly enough to properly control his symptoms. During a recording session in 1979 he started unraveling, telling band members saying that "white people were trying to kill him and had connected his brain to a machine, for the purpose of stealing his music and his sound."

Hours later, Hathaway was found dead on the sidewalk below the window of his 15th-floor room in New York's Essex House hotel. It was reported that he had jumped from his balcony The glass had been neatly removed from the window and there were no signs of struggle, leading investigators to rule that Hathaway's death was a suicide. However, his friends were mystified, considering that his career had just entered a resurgence.



Live version from 1972:



Does a great version of Lennon's Jealous Guy too.
 
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67. Luther Ingram - If It's All The Same To You Babe

This stomping northern soul tune from 1966 failed to chart. It wasn't until the 70s that he started to have success when he was part of the deep talent pool at the influential Memphis label Stax Records and its subsidiaries.

His biggest hit was (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right. Two other acts had recorded it before Ingram, but neither version was released. Ingram decided to slow the song down for his version, which was released in May 1972. With his intimate, gospel-flavored vocal, it quickly hit No. 1 on the R&B chart, went to No. 3 on the pop chart and became a radio standby that summer.

 
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66. Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself

In the band's early years, they were mostly known for playing covers of popular R&B hits but by the late 1960s, the group began to create original songs, resulting in a sound that was, as Charles Wright put it, "the middle ground between Otis Redding and James Brown", reflecting the group's musical blend of different regional R&B and funk styles.

They had nine hit singles between 1967 and 1973, including Express Yourself which was the title track from their 1970 album. The song was nominated for a Grammy but lost out to The Delfonics' (far inferior IMO) Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time.

NWA famously sampled the song on their track of the same name on their 1988 album Straight Outta Compton.

 
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65. Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

A tenor with a four octave vocal range, Wilson was nicknamed Mr Excitement, and was important in the transition of R&B into soul. He was considered a master showman, and one of the most dynamic and influential singers and performers in R&B and rock 'n' roll history. His solo career began in 1957 and he recorded over 50 hit singles, including this mega hit from 1967.

Producer Carl Davis recalls, Wilson originally sang the song "like a soul ballad. I said that's totally wrong. You have to jump and go with the percussion... If he didn't want to sing it that way, I would put my voice on the record and sell millions." After hearing Davis's advice, Wilson cut the lead vocal for "Higher and Higher" in a single take. He was backed by members of Motown house band the Funk Brothers.

 
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64. Linda Lyndell - What A Man

Really interesting backstory around this southern soul singer.

Linda Lyndell, a white singer who had been a support act with James Brown and Ike & Tina Turner was recommended to Stax Records by Otis Redding.

During a recording session in Memphis in 1968, Lyndell and the Stax house band essentially improvised "What a Man" in just two takes. The single went on to reach the number 50 spot on the Billboard pop charts, but the increased visibility also called attention to the fact that Lyndell was a white woman singing black music, triggering threats from the Ku Klux Klan and other racist factions. In response she retired from performing and returned to Gainesville (Florida), living the next quarter century in seclusion.

When rappers Salt-N-Pepa teamed with R&B vocal group En Vogue for their provocative 1993 single "Whatta Man," they borrowed Lyndell's original chorus in toto. She knew nothing of the appropriation until the first royalty check appeared in her mailbox, but the massive success of the hip-hop update proved the catalyst that inspired Lyndell to eventually resume her music career. In May 2003 she performed at the opening of Memphis' Stax Museum, highlighted by her first-ever public rendition of "What a Man."

 
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63. The O'Jays - For The Love Of Money

Philadelphia R&B/Soul group who started in the late 50's but had their greatest level of success in the 70's.

They had major success with singles Backstabbers and Love Train in the early 70's. This song appeared on their 1973 album, Ship Ahoy and was also released as a single. It missed out on a Grammy in 1975 (to Rufus' junk song Tell Me Something Good) but was inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame 2016.

The song's title comes from a well-known Bible verse: "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

Single version:



Full album version:

 
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62. The Originals - Suspicion

Often described as Motown's 'best kept secret.' While spending most of their existence in the shadow of Motown's biggest acts, the Originals had a brief shining moment and a couple now-classic songs that will forever secure their place in Soul Music history.

The group broke out in 1970 after several years as a 2nd tier Motown group. Their vehicle was an absolutely beautiful ballad written by labelmate Marvin Gaye, "Baby I'm For Real." The song's arrangement and the group's performance were both perfect, and it became an instant soul classic that quickly topped the Soul charts. Gaye helped the following year with a successful sequel, the similarly strong "The Bells." However, the Originals' star fell quickly after the two hits. Their visibility within Motown decreased when the label moved to Los Angeles and the Originals chose to stay in Detroit.

They recorded this song in 1966 but it was never released as a single. It has since been released on several compilation albums and become a northern soul classic.

 
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61. Bob & Earl - Harlem Shuffle

Recorded in 1963, it was based on a number called "Slauson Shuffletime" by another Los Angeles singer, Round Robin. When released on the Marc label, Harlem Shuffle became a modest hit on the R&B chart. Its vocal interplay directly influenced later duos such as Sam and Dave. However, its main success came as late as 1969, when it was re-released in the UK and became a Top Ten hit there. Reportedly, George Harrison called it his favourite record of all time. House of Pain later sampled the song's opening horn line in their breakthrough single "Jump Around".

I saw Baby Driver recently and was pleasantly surprised when this track made a prominent appearance.

 
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60. Robert Knight - Everlasting Love

After performing sporadically during his college years, Knight was offered a contract as a solo artist by the Rising Sons label. His first recording, Everlasting Love, written by label owners Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, was a success, reaching number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was an even bigger success in the UK the following year when a version by pop group Love Affair reached No. 1, ironically preventing Knight's version from progressing further than No. 40.

U2 recorded a version in 1989 as a B Side to their single All I Want Is You.

It's been recorded a heap of times but IMO the original version is the best.

 
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59. Bunny Sigler - Follow Your Heart

"Mr Emotion" was part of the Philly Sound that rose to prominence in the late 60s and 70s. He released plenty of lush ballads but also some more uptempo numbers, like this Northern soul club favourite that was on his 1967 album Let The Good Times Roll & (Feel So Good)

 
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58. Vicki Anderson - Message From The Soul Sisters

Best known for being part of the James Brown Revue through two stints in the 60s and 70s, she is also the widow of Bobby Byrd who appeared at #28 in this countdown with I Know You Got Soul. Brown claimed in his autobiography that Anderson was the best singer he ever had in his revue.

She made a number of single releases herself through the 60s and 70s though never an album. In 1970 she released her most famous song, the feminist anthem "Message from the Soul Sisters" with its catchy piano riff and a cool backing groove from the JB's.

 
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57. Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody

Philadelphia Soul up again with this group who were popular through the 70s. The Blue Notes' most famous member was Teddy Pendergrass who would go on to have a successful solo career. This song was the title track of their 1975 album (the last featuring Pendergrass) and was later released successfully as a single.

 

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