Soul fused gospel heat with secular R&B pride in the sixties
Soul music arose in African-American communities in the late 1950s and early 1960s, mixing gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Handclaps, call-and-response, tense vocals, and improvised melisma marked the sound, while Motown, Atlantic, and Stax pushed it through the civil rights years onto global dance floors.
AllMusic frames soul as the urbanization and commercialization of R&B in the sixties; the phrase for gospel-style music with secular lyrics is attested from 1961. Ray Charles's 1954 hit I Got a Woman is often cited as a popularizing spark; Bobby Womack called him the genius who turned the world onto soul. Sam Cooke's 1957 You Send Me and 1962 Bring It On Home to Me, Jackie Wilson's Reet Petite, and James Brown's later Godfather nickname map other founding routes. Peter Guralnick pins a movement moment on Solomon Burke's 1961 Atlantic smash Just Out of Reach.
Aretha Franklin's 1967 Atlantic run—Respect, I Never Loved a Man, Do Right Woman—crowned female soul. Otis Redding owned Monterey Pop the same year and earned the Mr. Pitiful ballad mantle between 1962 and 1964. Regional flavours multiplied: Motown's pop polish, Southern and Memphis drive, New Orleans R&B roots, Chicago gospel lightness, Philadelphia's lush orchestral sheen. Ike and Tina Turner crossed over with A Fool in Love in 1960 and toured the Chitlin' Circuit as a revue.
By 1968 the genre splintered toward funk with James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, while Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and Al Green chased slicker or more political shades. Psychedelic and progressive soul absorbed rock textures; neo soul arrived around 1994 with hip-hop tools. Don Cornelius's Soul Train debuted in 1971 and aired until 2006, even as hip-hop later shared the stage. Across charts and continents, soul remained a banner for Black cultural insistence as much as a beat.
Source: Soul music
