Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence in the mid-to late 1990s with the subgenre neo-soul, which added modern production elements and influence from hip-hop.
Booker T. & the M.G.'s were an American instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums). In the 1960s, as members of the Mar-Keys, the rotating slate of musicians that served as the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King. They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era.
Sam & Dave were an American soul and R&B duo who performed together from 1961 until 1981. The tenor (higher) voice was Sam Moore and the baritone/tenor (lower) voice was Dave Prater (1937–1988).
Johnnie Harrison Taylor was an American recording artist and songwriter who performed a wide variety of genres, from blues, rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel to pop, doo-wop, and disco. He was initially successful at Stax Records with the number-one R&B hits "Who's Making Love" (1968), "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" (1971) and "I Believe in You " (1973), and reached number one on the US pop charts with "Disco Lady" in 1976.
Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records.
Memphis soul, also known as the Memphis sound, is the most prominent strain of Southern soul. It is a shimmering, sultry style produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax Records and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring melodic unison horn lines, organ, guitar, bass, and a driving beat on the drums.
Eddie Lee Floyd is an American R&B and soul singer and songwriter, best known for his work on the Stax record label in the 1960s and 1970s, including the No. 1 R&B hit song "Knock on Wood".
David Porter is an American record producer, songwriter, singer, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
The Soul Children was an American vocal group who recorded soul music for Stax Records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They had three top 10 hits on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart – "The Sweeter He Is" (1969), "Hearsay" (1972), and "I'll Be the Other Woman" (1973) – all of which crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100.
Malaco Records is an American independent record label based in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, that has been the home of various major blues and gospel acts, such as Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, Mel Waiters, Z. Z. Hill, Denise LaSalle, Latimore, Dorothy Moore, Little Milton, Shirley Brown, Tyrone Davis, Marvin Sease, and the Mississippi Mass Choir. It has received an historic marker issued by the Mississippi Blues Commission to commemorate its important place on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Memphis Underground is a 1969 album by jazz flutist Herbie Mann, that fuses the genres of jazz and rhythm and blues (R&B). While Mann and the other principal soloists were leading jazz musicians, the album was recorded in Chips Moman's American Sound Studio in Memphis, a studio used by many well-known R&B and pop artists. The rhythm section was the house band at American Studios. The recording was engineered and produced by Tom Dowd.
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is a museum located in Memphis, Tennessee, at 926 East McLemore Avenue, the original location of Stax Records. Stax launched and supported the careers of artists such as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Jean Knight, Mable John, and countless others including spoken word and comedy by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Moms Mabley, and Richard Pryor.
Ronald Marvell Thomas was an American keyboardist, record producer and arranger known for his work in Memphis Soul.
Homer Banks was an African American songwriter, singer and record producer. Although best known by many for his songwriting for Stax Records in the 1960s and 1970s, some of his own releases from the 1960s are considered classics on the Northern Soul scene. Many of the songs he wrote have become contemporary classics.
John Colbert, known professionally as J. Blackfoot, was an American soul singer. A member of The Soul Children in the late 1960s and 1970s, he subsequently had a moderately successful solo career. His biggest hit was "Taxi", which reached the charts in both the US and UK in 1984.
Jimmy J. Hughes is an American former rhythm and blues singer, whose biggest successes in the mid-1960s, notably his hit "Steal Away", were important in the early development of the Muscle Shoals music industry.
Mildred Pulliam Whitehorn is an American gospel and former R&B singer, who performed and recorded in the 1970s under the stage name Veda Brown. Her most successful record was "Short Stopping" in 1973.
This article lists the discography of the late American Blues and Soul bassist, Donald "Duck" Dunn. Dunn was an influential bassist notable for his recordings in the 1960s in the house band for Stax Records, Booker T. & the M.G.'s and thereafter as a session bassist.
George Henry Jackson was an American blues, rhythm & blues, rock and soul songwriter and singer. His prominence was as a prolific and skilled songwriter; he wrote or co-wrote many hit songs for other musicians, including "Down Home Blues," "One Bad Apple", "Old Time Rock and Roll" and "The Only Way Is Up". As a southern soul singer he recorded fifteen singles between 1963 and 1985, with some success.
Bettye Jean Crutcher was an American songwriter. She was a staff writer for Stax Records. Crutcher teamed with Homer Banks and Raymond Jackson as We Three, and co-wrote "Who's Making Love" for Johnnie Taylor, which earned a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. Crutcher also wrote music for the Staple Singers, Sam & Dave, and Albert King.
