soul
An African-American music genre combining gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz.
In Depth
Soul music emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s, blending the emotional intensity and vocal techniques of gospel with the rhythms and structures of R&B and the harmonic sophistication of jazz. The result was a deeply personal, emotionally charged style of popular music.
Ray Charles is widely credited as the father of soul for combining sacred and secular music in a way that was controversial but commercially explosive. Sam Cooke brought smooth elegance, James Brown brought rhythmic power, and Aretha Franklin brought unmatched vocal authority. Motown (Detroit) and Stax (Memphis) became the genre's two great record labels, each with a distinct sound.
When Aretha Franklin recorded Respect in 1967, she transformed Otis Redding's original from a plea into a demand — adding the spelling-out of R-E-S-P-E-C-T that became a feminist and civil rights anthem.