Soul Music

Soul Music (often referred to simply as soul) is a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where 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.

Links To Peel
A supporter of soul music through the 60's and 70's, Peel played many artists from the genre, although in a 1967 letter to Jackie Dash, a Perfumed Garden fan, he wrote that he had little time for Motown. Nonetheless, many Motown artists including Stevie Wonder and Martha & The Vandellas were played on his shows, including some that entered his Peelenium and his own top 15 singles of 1975 on 19 December 1975.

Motown was criticised for many as being too polished and Peel generally preferred the raw sound of soul music. His radio rival, Tony Blackburn was an avid soul fan, which Peel acknowledged as having done so much for soul music on his programmes.

The phrase "Northern soul" emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London, which was run by journalist Dave Godin. It was first publicly used in Godin's weekly column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at Soul City differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother, Motown-influenced soul of a few years earlier. With contemporary black music evolving into what would eventually become known as funk, the die-hard soul lovers of Northern England still preferred the mid-1960s era of Motown-sounding black American dance music. Peel was an avid fan of northern soul and played tracks from Dave Godin's northern soul compilations albums in the 90's and beyond when it was released. Peel's favourites The Fall did a 1981 song "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul" about the Northern soul scene, which Mark E Smith told the NME in 1983 was about glorifying the northern soul fans.

Modern soul music in the late 70's and beyond, with it's elements of disco, electronica and later contremporary R&B, which included elements of hip hop and pop did not enthuse Peel's taste in the genre, preferring to play archive soul music that were released before the mid-70's. This explained why there weren't any modern soul acts in the Festive Fifty for listeners to choose, although there were few current soul artists in the 80's that Peel liked, which included Terence Trent D'Arby  and Paul Johnson, who did sessions for his shows. In the 90's, no artists from the soul genre did any sessions, but in 2000, he invited singer Kelis to do one, hoping that she did covers of old 60's soul music, but she didn't have the time and instead focused her session on her LP.