The Black Informant

Definition of Soul music

Found on website: The Soul Review
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What is Soul? Nobody Knows, but people keep talkin’ about ‘We got Soul’”

(’What is Soul’ - Ben E King)

Even top ’soul’ artists are unable to specify exactly what soul is, indeed it is often argued that there is no definition of ’soul’ and that it is wholly peculiar to the individual. Music which is soulful to one pair of ears may not be soulful to another. Although this may be true to a degree the very fact that most people can recognise a soul record when they hear one means that there must be some common elements. Unquestionably there are musical characteristics (see Musical Characteristics) and there is a generally accepted historical context (see The History of Soul), but on their own these are not enough. There is also an emotional element to soul which is much more difficult to define. The history, social conditions and influences which gave rise to soul are both diverse and complex and for this reason I do not believe that a definitive description is possible. At best it is possible to isolate elements of a definition then consider whether they apply to an individual piece of music or not. Not all characteristics will ever all apply to one single song, but if enough of them do then it may truly be considered a soul record. It is my intention to reproduce those quotations which most helped me to understand the meaning of soul.

Soul is too subjective a concept to ever be fully defined

Reflecting and encouraging black pride, soul is an important psychological component of the black struggle. It is a diffuse, almost mystical concept and its emphasis on subjective qualities - ‘you have to feel it’ - encourages emotional commitment to it. As well as having important psychological functions, soul has a sociological role. Its diffuseness allows all black Americans to identify and associate with it and so with each other. As Enoch Gregory (WWRL) says, ‘If you got a hundred guys in a room and asked them exactly what soul means, you’ll get a hundred and fifty different answers.’”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P145)

Soul Music is about realism, it is not blinkered by romantic ideals

“A conventional tune-smith might write, ‘You’re still near, my darling, though we’re apart/ I’ll hold you always in my heart’. The soul singer might put it, ‘Baby, since you split the scene the rent’s come due/Without you or your money it’s hard, yeah, hard to be true.”

(Aretha Franklin (Lady Soul) - Page 13)

Soul Music is tolerant of promiscuity

“Just one moment” is another fine composition which pinpoints the feelings of a two-timing man. He’s with ‘the other woman’ and now it is morning and time to return to his wife. He observes ,”She’ll want to know where I’ve been all night long - I’ll hand her some excuse like so many times before.” The performance is admirable in that the tedium of guilt is well conveyed and so is the ugliness. The listener is invited to identify on all sides, thus making moral judgements difficult and painful because the quick of emotion is all too raw. It is a cruel song, too, as he tells his mistress “You’re everything she’s not” and its honesty poses problems. This is where soul parts company with most popular music. It demands maturity and understanding and that’s going to exclude a lot of teenagers and older. So this album is very adult fare and many blacks, if they are frank, will admit to misgivings, not on the usual naive moral grounds but simply because this is the picture of so called black promiscuity that white America and the U.K. holds dear.”

(The Soul Book - Pages 92-93)

Another element in soul’s characteristic treatment of the infidelity theme is the frequency with which the “illicit” relationship is placed in a sympathetic light, with the “outside woman” or adulterous man at the centre of the song. In Bunny and Cindy’s “We’re Only Human”, the pair claim that their clandestine passion is too strong to be denied, while the B-side acknowledges the social obstacles involved - “Sure didn’t take long (For the New to get around)”.

(The Soul Book - Page 139)

Soul Music is about poverty and day to day drudgery

“And secondly, because severe external restrictions remain, such as lack of money. The candid recognition of the conditions in which love has to survive lies directly in the blues tradition.”

(The Soul Book - Page 130)

Soul Music often contains meaningless lyrics chosen only for their sound

“Inky Winky Dang Wang Do - Baby Baby I Love You” - The Dramatics

“The Actress Fanny Kemble, touring the deep south prior to emancipation, noted in her journal: “I have heard that many of the masters and overseers on these plantations prohibit melancholy tunes or words and encourage nothing but cheerful music and senseless words”".

(The Soul Book - Page 154)

Soul Music is about the problems faced by groups of people, not of individuals

“The use of the first person plural rather than singular is a feature of soul music, not of blues.”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P74)

Experience is vital pre-requisite for the Soul Singer

“James Brown personifies the belief that, like the blues singer, the soul singer has experienced what he is singing about. The experience of poverty and hardship and of being black is seen as an essential apprenticeship for the soul singer, and conversely, this experience is seen as reflected in the music itself. Ed. Cook (WVON) states, ‘The only way a singer can communicate with his audience is he will have to live it or experience it. For example Ray Charles, he’s experienced everything, he’s blind, not only that he’s a Negro, he’s been addicted to narcotics, he’s lived it all.’ The common experience of blackness and poverty and the beliefs which surround the music enables black audiences to relate directly to soul singers.”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P104/105)

Inherent in Soul Music is the belief that circumstances can improve

“Whereas blues concentrates almost entirely on experience, usually the experience of failure, soul songs state the ideal. Moral principles are laid down, rules of conduct advocated, right and wrong clearly delineated. Blues has little overt concern with the morality involved. It merely states the way it is, and this is how I am suffering. By comparison soul music implies life is not to be accepted as it comes, hardship is not merely to be borne, but life is to be made worth living.”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P117)

“Soul music promotes black self-help and mutual aid as a further means for realising the future. In several songs James Brown argues the case for black unity and for blacks working together for mutual benefit.”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P121)

“Concern is expressed in soul music for conditions in the poorer areas of black society. In blues, these conditions are seen, by implication, as imponderables within which the individual must somehow survive. In soul music they are condemned and defined as something to be eradicated. The use of drugs forms the subject of a number of blues and soul songs. The blues singer puts himself in the position of the drug addict, sings about the experience, and either bemoans his fate seeing no way out of the situation, or describes, with some bravado, the pleasure he obtains. Soul singers are concerned with creating a climate and a frame of mind which can do something about the problem.”

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P121/122)

“Rooted in the blues, soul singing is in a different bag than the blues. Admittedly they both stem from the same tradition of personal expressiveness. But the essence of the blues is a degree of control, reserve detatchment, and distance that make it possible for the singer to face great adversity and frustration with calm and courage. The essence of Soul is a degree of personal involvement, that eminates from the singers feeling of rage and outrage at the advesities and frustrarions of an abominable world”

(The World of soul P. 245)

“One attitude and style (Blues) was natural in an era when negroes felt that they had to bear whatever burdens were imposed upon them. The other (Soul) is a concomitant of a time when they are unafraid to shout out their greivances and determined to throw off their unjust burdens”

(The worl of soul P.245-246)

“In short we will discover that soul is the projection in song of a new feeling of black dignity, self respect, and militancy - and an unabashed search for and return to roots”

(The World of Soul P.246)

The influence of Gospel gave Soul a belief in a better future

Many gospel songs ring with jubilation and triumph, conviction and anticipation about reaching the ‘blessed homeland’, ‘moving on up a little higher’ and ‘waking up in glory’. The themes are structured on the same basic equation, the opposition of present and future, of pain and joy. The hardships of the present on earth are catalogued and compared with the happiness of the future in heaven. Even the most mournful gospel songs are not intrinsically despondent, since they offer ultimate salvation. With the qualification that the life to come is on earth and not in heaven, the perspective of gospel music fits the mood of black America in the ’60’s. The agency responsible for the life to come is secular, not sacred.’

(Soul Music, The Birth Of A Sound In Black America -P131/132)

“Not spirituals, not blues, not rhythm-and-blues, but gospel songs are the immediate blood relatives of soul. In fact blues come from another side of the family, as a Mahalia Jackson comment suggests: “Blues are the songs of despair. Gospel songs are the songs of hope. When you sing gospel, you have the feeling that there is a cure for what’s wrong”

(The World of Soul P.239)

The ‘Moan’ is a defining characteristic of Soul Music

As theologian and social critic Cornel West observes in ‘The Future of The Race’, the moan lies at the core of black expression:

‘… it is a guttural cry and a wrenching moan - a cry not so much for help as for home, a moan less out of complaint than for recognition…. The deep black meaning of this cry and moan goes back to the indescribable cries of Africans on the slave ships during the cruel transatlantic voyages to America and the indecipherable moans of enslaved Afro-Americans on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings near god-forsaken creeks or on wooden benches at prayer meetings in makeshift black churches. The fragile existential arsenal - rooted in silent tears and weary lament - supports black endurance against madness and suicide’

(A Change is Gonna Come, Music race and the soul of America - P8)

Soul is based on certain musical tecnniques including - Soul Shouting, Call & Response and Melissma (the ability to bend a word over several notes)
“King James (Cleveland) is master of all the vocal devices of black singing - syllables stretched over many, many notes, falsetto glisses, bent notes, torn notes, excited shouts, and the changing sonorities and textures manipulated by blues and jazz singers”
(The World of Soul P.244)

Blues/Soul has become trendy amongst white middle class musicians, but lack of proper experience debars them from making the genuine article

‘I don’t really want to buy blues record by some middle-class white guy from Iowa. I have strong feelings about this. It’s just not the blues anymore. It’s fine if he calls it something else, but he shouldn’t say, anymore than I would, its the blues. Because its not.”

(John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival in ‘A Change is Gonna Come’, Music race and the soul of America - P154)

Black Music is exploited by inferior white copyists, but these “cultural bandits” themselves create an impetus for black artists to develop new forms of music. Black artists do this to keep ahead of the game

“Soul is a direct outgrowth of R&B. It involves sociology and the unique character of American life, also the normal search of young people to successeive generations for their own language. Traditional or folk music, by which I mean music that grows out of the people and the community, is very conservative. Growing out of a way of life , its slow to change. In C&W you can listen over the past twenty years and find that while it has changed slightly, it still has a recognisable identity. Perhaps , its moving a little closer to pop, but Buck Owens isn’t very much different from Hank Williams.

But when it comes to black music, there’s a radical change from R&B to soul. That’s because there are forces at work from without, bringing pressure to bear on the black community. From the turn of the century to now, American pop has become increasingly black. Black men and women have been the innovators, breathing life into new forms. Black artists have always drawn the road maps, white artists have picked up on the music, dug it, copied it, interpreted it, become the kings , and reaped enormous financial benefit. Very often they have accepted the proffered crowns. Paul Whiteman, ‘The King of Jazz’ - surely not the king; Benny Goodman, ‘The King of Swing’ - a fine musician, but surely not the king. Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford wore the crowns whether they were invested formally or not. Elvis Presley, ‘The King of R&R - a fine creative artist and a revolutionary figure in American music, but the kings of rock ‘n’ roll were fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, B.B. King.

Now with that pattern in operation, the black artist has to be gun shy. ‘We’re gonna come up with something’, he figures, ‘that whitey can’t rip off.’ So soul music became so black and so gospel tinged that it can’t easily be copied. I’m not saying that there’s a meeting of black people to decide this any more than there’s a gathering of whites to plan rip-offs. It just happens. Its somehow woven into the fabric of our nation.”

(Johnny Otis speaking to Arnold Shaw on Soul Music in ‘Honkers & Shouters’ - P.166)

Soul music develops at a much faster pace than that of white contemporary music

“But where music is concerned, money is involved and the whites have gotten it. It’s a racist situation. It’s not a cultural exchange; its long distance theft. That’s one reason why the music has changed in character at an accelerated pace - a more rapid pace than folk music would normally change.”

(Johnny Otis speaking to Arnold Shaw on Soul Music in ‘Honkers & Shouters’ - P.166)

As the market for soul music grew and expanded it became more “white” as white influences mixed with the black. As a result it began to lose its identity eventually became an inferior stylised copy of the orginal. The mixing of influences is often considered to be innovative, but it also serves to dilute the orginal. This may also explain why white styles have longevity, wheras black styles have a much shorter shelf life. It may also explain why Black Music has such diversity

“So soul music has gone from the Atlantic-stax sound of the sixties to something else. It’s become more stylized and not as black as it was. A lot of french horns and European influences - pseudodramatic, soprano-voiced males; a lot of pimping; affected dance steps and programmed choreography. That’s the present day thing, of course, and to me, all of this tends to dilute the strong honest character of American black music.

(Johnny Otis speaking to Arnold Shaw on Soul Music in ‘Honkers & Shouters’ - P.166)

Soul Music was the main method of escapism from the drudgery of everyday life

Soul Music had its beginnings in the dark days of the spirituals, the sorrow songs as they have been called. “In the old days”, Langston Hughes explains, “the slaves had no way of protesting about their fate. without danger of being whipped or even killed, except through their songs. So in the simple lines of the spirituals, short lines repeated over and over, went all the pain and sorrow of their bondage, compressed and intensified into the very essence of sorrow itself”

(The World Of Soul P.238)

“If I may hazard a guess, it was because going to church had to serve poor people for entertainment as well as inspitarionn”

(The World of soul P.240)