Am a 56 year old white guy up in the North of England. Real Soul is sparce up here, but since technology & the Internet revolution, I have a bank of Web radio stations that see me through
Have been into Soul since 1966, have done Tamla, Stax, Atlantic, then Northern Soul, Funk. Then Gospel, Jazz Funk, Laid back Jazz & now Neo Soul.
But through all these years, Lyrics, Ballads 3/4/6 part Harmonies & Bass lines have dominated my life & still do. Real Soul hasn't changed that much since the 60's, it's gone back to it's roots, only production & technology has changed the music. Long gone are the days as a young teenager, who would sit (up all night) with a portable radio in one hand & a microphone connected to a cassette recorder to tape tracks of Black music from illegal pirate radio stations, mainly because record stores didn't import music from the States then. Remember sitting up one night 'til 3.00am to catch the long-awaited ‘Music of my Mind’ album (whose release had been delayed like most of Stevies early albums). Sythesizers hadn't been used in black music, it blew me away & it changed the face of Soul from thereon in.
My hero was & still is Donny Hathaway, plus Stevie, Aretha & James Brown. Sam Dees as a songwriter. Aretha's voice blew you away, James made you wanna get up & dance, Sam's lyrics made you concentrate on them, but when Donny sung "(Lord) We need you right now" & "Sack full of dreams" & "I love you more than you'll ever know" he made me cry & when he died, I understood even more of what the lyrics meant to him. He just wanted a better world for everyone. Miss Donny, Luther, Grover & now Gerald Levert.
Rockie Robbins, Bobby Womack, The Winans, Michael Henderson, Tower of Power, Isleys, Shai, Kenny Lattimore, Phyllis Hyman, Frankie Beverley & Shai Prince, feature heavily in my collection.
Now into Neo Soul, Smooth Jazz & still BALLADS.
Love Frank McComb, Joe, Donnie, Take 6, Eddie Levert, Jonny Gill, Will Downing, Brian McKnight, Eric Benet, Ndambi, Raheem Devaughn, Music SoulChild.
Just taken my eldest daughter to see Brian McKnight & BoyzIIMen. (04/07) great when you can share music with your kids.
My 3 daughters totally understand that what i suffer from is a terminal illness of REAL SOUL MUSIC, which they understand totally, as 2 are into Stevie, Joe & BrianMcknight.
If you've read through all of this, thank you for persevering, it's from the heart.