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54 albums · 1959–2016

Soul, from gospel and Motown to Stax, Philadelphia, neo-soul and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Aretha Franklin, her chin resting on her hand, in a black and white publicity photograph
Marvin Gaye smiling, in a knitted cap, in a black and white photographSharon Jones singing in a blue fringed dress, the Dap-Kings on drums, congas and bass behind her
Aretha Franklin in a publicity photograph of Atlantic Records, 1968. Photo: Atlantic Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · Marvin Gaye in 1973, during the sessions for Let's Get It On. Photo: Jim Britt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at South by Southwest in Austin in 2013. Photo: Kent Wang, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Soul grew out of gospel and rhythm and blues in the United States in the fifties, when Ray Charles and Sam Cooke took the voices and the call and response of the church into songs about love. In the sixties it was made at record companies in Detroit, Memphis and Chicago and in the studios of Muscle Shoals in Alabama.

Motown in Detroit made it into pop with the Supremes, the Temptations and the Four Tops. Stax in Memphis and Atlantic's sessions in the South gave it the harder sound of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and Aretha Franklin. In the seventies Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder made albums of their own songs, and Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International put strings behind the O'Jays and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Neo-soul came in the nineties with D'Angelo, Erykah Badu and Maxwell, and Daptone in Brooklyn went back to the sound of the sixties with Sharon Jones.

The list has 54 records from 1959 to 2016. It leaves out the singles, where much of soul was made, and with them the compilations, gospel itself, most of funk and disco and the R&B of the eighties and after beyond a few, which would each need a list of their own. About 37 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Soul & R&B 93%Jazz 3%Hip hop 1%Other 3%
  • Soul & R&B 93%
  • Jazz 3%
  • Hip hop 1%
  • Other 3%

The genres named most: soul, r&b, funk, neo soul, philly soul, southern soul.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 2 countries: United States 49, United Kingdom 4. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

More lists

Lists of Genres first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.