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Soul Funk Disco / Brothers & Sisters / Volume One 1958 – 1967
1958 - 1964
1 SAM COOKE / You Send Me / Sam Cooke March 1958
2 JERRY BUTLER & THE IMPRESSIONS / For Your Precious Love / Single A Side May 1958
3 JACKIE WILSON / Lonely Teardrops / Single A Side November 1958
4 CLYDE McPHATTER / A Lovers Question / Single A Side November 1958
5 MARV JOHNSON / Come To Me / Single A Side January 1959
6 RAY CHARLES / What’d I Say / What’d I Say June 1959
7 JAMES BROWN & THE FAMOUS FLAMES / Bewildered / Think February 1960
8 IKE & TINA TURNER / A Fool In Love / Single A Side August 1960
9 ERNIE K DOE / A Certain Girl / Single A Side November 1961
10 BOBBY ‘BLUE’ BLAND / Don’t Cry No More / Single A Side September 1961
11 BEN E KING / Young Boy Blues / Single B Side October 1961
12 THE MIRACLES / What’s So Good About Goodbye / Single A Side December 1961
13 SOLOMON BURKE / Cry To Me / Single A Side February 1962
14 ARTHUR ALEXANDER / You Better Move On / Single A Side February 1962
15 SAM COOKE / Bring It On Home To Me / Single A Side May 1962
16 JAMES BROWN & THE FAMOUS FLAMES / I’ll Go Crazy / Live At The Apollo December 1962
17 THE DRIFTERS / On Broadway / Single A Side March 1963
18 BARBARA LEWIS / Hello Stranger / Single A Side May 1963
19 THE IMPRESSIONS / It’s All Right / Single A Side June 1963
20 MARY WELLS / You Lost The Sweetest Boy / Single B Side August 1963
21 THE SUPREMES / When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through / Single A Side October 1963
22 OTIS REDDING / Pain In My Heart / Single A Side November 1963
23 GARNET MIMMS & THE ENCHANTERS / A Quiet Place / Cry Baby February 1964
24 SAM COOKE / A Change Is Gonna Come / Ain’t That Good News March 1964
25 BOBBY ‘BLUE’ BLAND / Ain’t Nothing You Can Do / Single A Side April 1964
26 GLORIA JONES / Tainted Love / Single A Side May 1964
27 LITTLE ESTHER PHILLIPS / Mojo Hannah / Single A Side June 1964
28 THE DRIFTERS / Up On The Roof / Our Biggest Hits June 1964
29 IRMA THOMAS / Time Is On My Side / Single B Side July 1964
30 JAMES BROWN & THE FAMOUS FLAMES / Out Of Sight / Single A Side August 1964
1965 - 1967
1 MARVIN GAYE / I’ll Be Doggone / Single A Side February 1965
2 THE IMPRESSIONS / People Get Ready / Single A Side February 1965
3 THE TEMPTATIONS / It’s Growing / The Temptations Sing Smokey March 1965
4 OTIS REDDING / Your One And Only Man / Sings Soul Ballads March 1965
5 THE MARVELETTES / I’ll Keep Holding On / Single A Side May 1965
6 JOE TEX / The Love You Save / Single A Side June 1965
7 STAPLE SINGERS / Why? (Am I Treated So Bad) / Freedom Highway June 1965
8 OTIS REDDING / Down In The Valley / Otis Blue October 1965
9 THE FOUR TOPS / Something About You / Single A Side November 1965
10 FRANK WILSON / Do I Love You / Single A Side November 1965
11 LEE DORSEY / Get Out Of My Life Woman / Single A Side January 1966
12 MARVIN GAYE / One More Heartache / Single A Side February 1966
13 HOMER BANKS / A Lot Of Love / Single A Side February 1966
14 WILSON PICKETT / Ninety Nine And A Half / Single A Side May 1966
15 HOWARD TATE / Ain’t Nobody Home / Get It While You Can June 1966
16 THE SUPREMES / Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart / The Supremes A Go Go September 1966
17 DYKE & THE BLAZERS / Funky Broadway Part 1 / Single A Side October 1966
18 OTIS REDDING / Try A Little Tenderness / Dictionary Of Soul November 1966
19 ARETHA FRANKLIN / Do Right Woman, Do Right Man / I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You March 1967
20 LOU RAWLS / Dead End Street / Single A Side April 1967
21 JAMES CARR / Pouring Water On A Drowning Man / You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up May 1967
22 SAM & DAVE / I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down / Single B Side June 1967
23 THE PARLIAMENTS / (I Wanna) Testify / Single A Side June 1967
24 SOUL BROTHERS SIX / Some Kind Of Wonderful / Single A Side June 1967
25 JAMES BROWN & THE FAMOUS FLAMES / Cold Sweat Part 1 / Single A Side July 1967
26 ETTA JAMES / I’d Rather Go Blind / Tell Mama August 1967
27 THE TEMPTATIONS / Just One Last Look / With A Lot ‘O Soul August 1967
28 KING CURTIS & THE KINGPINS / Memphis Soul Stew / Single A Side August 1967
Sam Cooke didn’t know he was kick starting a new black music form in June 1957 as he recorded ‘You Send Me’. The singer with the glorious voice, exiled from his beloved gospel roots, thought he was making a pop record. Similarly Ray Charles, who kept mixing gospel into R&B style until he came up with the epochal ‘What’d I Say’. Together with Jackie Wilson, Clyde McPhatter and James Brown, they searched for a way to represent not only the excitement of gospel but its implications of social and personal interdependence. These were the very roots of soul.
Racial discrimination, beatings and KKK killings were rife in early/mid sixties America, particularly in the old confederate south. The civil rights movement rose up as a vehicle for resistance and as the protests increased so did black pride. Soul became the rallying cry for a change in black (and white) consciousness, and while never truly political in nature, it came to represent one of the first (and most visible) successes of the movement. Sam Cooke’s ‘ A Change Is Gonna Come’ became one of the first soul records to address the issues head on.
By 1964, soul was finally being recognised in its right and starting to get dirtier, greasier, rawer and more secular, paradoxically by imitating gospels most hardcore aspects – it’s shouting, hand clapping, speaking in tongues expressivity, its Holy Roller dementia, its relentless rhythms. Most of the new soul generation were already established, at least within the black community. Bobby Bland’s records were some of the finest gospel influenced recordings of the period, while former preacher Solomon Burke somehow transferred the fervour of the pulpit into stirring rhythms. Otis Redding also emerged, all grits, grunts and gospel fire. And there were others: Curtis Mayfield’s Impressions, their ‘People Get Ready’ another timeless civil rights spiritual; Berry Gordy’s Motown, the ultimate symbol of black economic self sufficiency, Joe Tex, Sam and Dave and Wilson Pickett. Most made their best records in 1965/66 which went largely unheralded.
Almost inevitably, it was left to the maverick James Brown to push soul in a new direction and towards the mainstream, using his full on personality to smash a way into the public consciousness. Revered as ‘Soul Brother No 1’, even amongst his peers, he released a string of tougher than tough dance records, before blowing everything apart with ‘Cold Sweat’ in 1967. That record was so radical and so different, it single handedly detonated the seismic shift towards funk, and in so doing changed the course of history.
