A bit over a year ago I posted on some of the most soulful soul songs, but today is the definitive list—my personal choice, of course. At the bottom of the post you can vote for your favorite.
In the earlier post, I gave Wikipedia’s definition of soul music, which included this:
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combined elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues, and often jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States – where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax labels were influential during the period of the civil rights movement.
. . . Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the soloist and the chorus, and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds.
That kind of music runs the gamut from romantic ballads barely distinguishable from non-soul music, like Lenny Welch’s great song “Since I Fell For You,” to the 14 songs listed below, all of which exemplify that “especially tense vocal sound”. I prefer to think of it as “raw musical emotionality”, and that’s what you’re about to hear.
There are many great soul songs not on this list, for what I’ve chosen below are the most soulful soul songs that I know. I love songs by the Supremes, for instance, but they don’t seem particularly soulful, though they are indeed soul music.
There are no songs on my list sung by non-black people, though of course whites have produced songs that could easily be classified as soul. These include the Righteous Brothers, of course, and Macy Gray has included Hall and Oates’s “Sara Smile” as one of her ten favorite soul songs. Carole King, who’s white, wrote two of the songs below, but it’s the performance that makes a song soulful.
I invite readers, as always, to add their own favorites. Herewith, my own. I’ve chosen live performances when possible (some are lip-synched), but also link to the original version. Note that nine of the 14 songs were released between 1965 and 1967: my peak formative years for music, when I was a junior and senior in high school. Every song is about love save “A Change is Gonna Come”, which is about civil rights.
Try a Little Tenderness (Otis Redding, 1966; original recording here).
Ask the Lonely (The Four Tops, vocals by Levi Stubbs, 1965; original version here). I still think this is the most soulful live performance of a soul song ever, save perhaps that of “Night Train” by James Brown at the TAMI concert.)
I Was Made to Love Her (Stevie Wonder, 1967. This is lip-synched.)
(For a more recent and truly live version, showing that Stevie’s still got it, go here).
Heat Wave (Martha [Reeves] and the Vandellas, 1963, lip-synched. This was written by the great Motown songwriting team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland).
A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke, who also wrote it, 1964).
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin, 1967, written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. This is the version I put up yesterday; the original recording is here)
Ooo Baby Baby (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, co-written by Robinson, 1964. Original recording here.)
When a Man Loves a Woman (Percy Sledge, 1966, original recording here.)
This Old Heart of Mine (is Weak for You) (The Isley Brothers, 1966.)
More Love (Smokey Robinson, 1967. Robinson wrote it, and read the backstory).
Will You Love Me Tomorrow (The Shirelles, 1960, lip synched. Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, this is the earliest song on the list).
It’s a Shame (the Spinners, 1970, co-written by Stevie Wonder, Syreeta Wright and Lee Garrett)
Since I Lost My Baby (The Temptations, lead vocal by David Ruffin, 1965. Cowritten by Smokey Robinson and Pete Moore of The Miracles.)
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (Jimmy Ruffin [David’s brother], lip-synched, 1966).
And here’s the POLL. You can vote only once, so choose carefully. After you vote, you’ll be able to see the latest results. Or, if you want to see the results before voting (which is cheating), just click “view results” in the poll.
I’d prefer if you’d vote for the “most soulful” song, but I expect that your choice will be confluent with your favorite song. In the comments below, please add your own favorites that aren’t given here.
WHAT! No James Brown!???? I would crawl across broken glass past each of the great artists on your list to hear four bars of this:
There’s already a link above to Brown’s performance of “Night Train” at that concert (the TAMI show); his whole performance there is one huge glop of soul, and I pondered including it.
With the cape, and everything. He was one of a kind.
The music is nice, but…am I the only only one who thinks that behavior is just weird?
I’d rather drink muddy water than part with any one of my James Brown albums. Thanks for sharing this reminder.
I can’t watch this, though, without recalling Eddie Murphy’s “it’s too hot in the hot tub” impression of James & the Flames on SNL. It was this impression of James that Eddie essentially reprised in his Academy-Award-nominated turn as the soul singer in the movie Dream Girls.
Heh. That’s pretty a clever impression by Murphy.
Where’s Albert King?
Dead.
He was blues, not soul. That’s another kettle of fish, one that I don’t know much about.
King was one of those artists on Stax that often crossed over into soul. And “soul” often incorporated rhythm & blues.
Is there no room for musical heterozygosity?
As did Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf at Chess Records.
They are, all three of them, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
My personal favorite is “Bernadette” by The Four Tops. Levi Stubbs when he hits it wrenches my heart … so I vote for “Ask The Lonely”
Yeah, it was a tough call for me to choose between “Bernadette” and “Ask the Lonely”!
Damn my vote still stands but Aretha’s performance of Natural Woman was
tear-jerkingly great
Aretha Franklin, substituting for Pavorotti, performing “Nessun Dorma”. Listen, and be awed:
Wow!
(I could have done without the closeup of Celine Dion, though!)
Couldn’t everyone?
Goddamn … goddamn … goddamn. I’d never seen that before. Blown away.
I’d want to include Etta James:” I’d Rather Go Blind”
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PYPvMz-Wc
Awesomeness right there!
I’ve felt that “Try a Little Tenderness” is an amazingly versatile song. It can be done as soul,blues, country, jazz, big band, even a minimalist piano and singer and sound great.
I remember them all. Of this list I’ll go with Stevie Wonder’s entry as my top pick.
But, and I know it isn’t my list… Where’s Marvin Gaye’s I heard it through the grapevine?
Gladys & her Pips picked it up and ran off with it, that’s where it is. 🙂
Good question!
My favorite is Will you still love me tomorrow. It still brings a tear, and to think that it’s about consequences of casual liaisons from a woman’s point of view still awes me. And it’s beautifully using studio violins rather than guitar.
Most soulful might be Roberta Flack, The first time ever I saw your face.
Although it was written by Ewan Mcall for Peggy Seeger, it was made famous by Roberta Flack, that is the song that came to my mind when asked for the “most soulful” song. I think that our choice is a different kind of “soul” than what was described in the definition. I am still in agreement with you however.
Yes, genre questions apart, “The first time ever I saw your face” is so powerful—I tear up even just thinking about it.
You want “consequences of casual liaisons from a woman’s point of view”? Try Phoebe Snow’s “The Married Man. The link is to the duet of the tune she did with Linda Ronstadt.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is my alltime favourite pop song, both this version and Carole King’s own version. I find it very moving, and it always amazes me that the lyrics were written by Gerry Goffin, not Carole King.
Nonetheless I voted for Sam Cooke’s one as the best soulful song. What a beautiful voice!
The difference between soul and some regions of the Blues and R& B can be a mystery to me. So at the risk of making a category error I put forward You Don’t Know Me by Ray Charles. It does not get a lot of air play, but when I heard it my world stood still.
There is no hard line at the junction of blues and soul, or in another direction, between blues and jazz. There is a lot that falls strongly into one category, but plenty that is not so plain
Same for “Stand By Me”, Ben E. King.
There’s even less distinction between R&B and soul. They’re roughly synonymous — the Billboard “hot 100” R&B chart, for example, at one point simply morphed into the “hot 100” soul chart.
If anything, “soul” — in the Motown sense, anyway — is R&B with some of the grit rinsed off it. (Rumor has it, Berry Gordy kept a pressure washer back behind that three-story “Hitsville USA” house on West Grand in Detroit for just such purposes, looking for the next huge cross-over hit.)
Other labels — Stax/Volt in Memphis, Atlantic in New York, Chess in Chicago — were proud of their grit, releasing some of their sides with so much of it they had to come wrapped in special, grit-resistant dust sleeves.
“You Don’t Know Me” — Ray’s cover of the Eddy Arnold country tune. I’m no great country music fan, but at its best it is, as Kris Kristofferson put it, “the white man’s soul music.” Ray showed ’em how to do soul right.
Speaking of Kristofferson, I was once in a basement club in Cleveland, a little joint holding 50 people, maybe, including waitresses and busboys. There was a blues piano-player/singer there, a cat named Jimmy Ley (with his “Coosa River Band”). He did a version of Kris’s tune “For the Good Times.” I mean, this white-boy bluesman just flat launched the sucker. Wailed on it. Sucked every drop of juice out of it, left it lying there a desiccated husk on the floor.
Still one of the damnedest things I ever saw. Left my buddy and me sitting there lookin’ at him, then at each other, goin’ WTF was that and where did it come from?
The Rev. Al Green did a soulful cover of “For the Good Times,” too. It ain’t bad, neither.
I am horrible at defining genres of music, so first I had to google “best soul songs” and read the list over. And as I read I was thinking, “Oh, of course, I like that and that and that.” So here is my pick. And since I’m a bit younger than you, it’s no surprise my choice is Diana Ross’s version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
http://youtu.be/uD99c3otHDA
Crap, not quite what I meant. Since I’m a bit younger, my pick is from a bit later. This recording is from 1978.
So many wonderful choices, dear to many (like me) who came of age during the 1960s and all their turmoil.
My vote goes to the heart-piercing “A Change Is Gonna Come”, one of whose profoundest overtones is “Yes, a change is gonna come, but I’m not gonna live to see it.” Which is what happened to Sam Cooke.
Spike Lee uses this song poignantly in “Malcolm X”. And “Try A Little Tenderness” first came to my attention as an instrumental that scores the opening scene — a nuke-carrying jet bomber being refueled in mid-air, with full sexual innuendo — of “Dr. Strangelove.”
Yes, I was jarred into remembering that song when Lee put it into the scene when Malcolm X and his family (and his killers) are traveling to the auditorium where he’ll be assassinated. In one amazing shot, Malcolm appears to be gliding, as if he’s on a hoverboard.
Oh hell, here it is:
That’s Spike’s signature “double-dolly tracking shot.” It shows up now and again throughout the Lee oeuvre.
Spike also used Junior Walker & the Allstars’ “Shotgun” to great effect foreshadowing the assassination scene in Malcolm X.
When it comes to great soul ballads that doubled as hope-filled, yearning anthems for the Civil Rights movement, the other song I think of is “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield.
Love that one.
Al Jarreau did an excellent cover (if not better than the original?) on the equally excellent album “Double Vision.”
Enjoy.
I’m not sure what really passes for soul music these days, but try this …
http://youtu.be/C2TOrMr5RqI
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Not available in my country.
Ah … darn BBC.
Andreya Triana, “Gold”.
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I hadn’t heard of her. She’s good!
I voted for Sam Cooke but confess a bias due to his being the performer of whom i consistently like ALL his songs not just some here and there.
I voted for Sam Cooke. I always liked this great song too:
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Narrowing soul down to the top ten is something I wouldn’t want to try. I could probably narrow it down to the top 100, in no particular order. On this list, I had to go with, “When a Man Loves a Woman”, but the song I sing the most around the house (to the detriment of my spouse) is, “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers (Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass and Stephen Stills on guitar). That one kills me.
Stills played guitar on that one? That’s new to me: I thought I knew a lot about Captain Manyhands, but that was s surprise.
It’s a fantastic song.
That won the Grammy for best R&B back in 1972.
Then you must know that today, Jan. 3, is his 69th birthday. We are all getting so old. Well, I’m not, but the rest of you…
‘At last’ by Etta James always gets me. Is that Soul though?
If that ain’t Soul (to paraphrase D.A. Coe), I’ll kiss your ass.
I voted for What Became of the Broken Hearted, happily I might add.
The challenge with lists like this is how do you pick the ones to pick from? My first thought was the James Taylor tune Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight, as done by the Isley Brothers. At This Moment by Billy Vera and the Beaters is white soul from another generation, and if Dusty Springfield isn’t on a list of great soul songs…..there’s a problem.
Anyway, to narrow it down to my top 1800 soul songs, I bought The Complete Motown Singles Collection a few years back. Every song released on a Motown Single, A side and B side, from ’59 to ’72. Of course that misses all of the Atlantic material, (Aretha), and Stax/Volt….
So much great music, so little time.
This is a great list. It’s so good that there’s no way I could pick a favorite.
For what it’s worth, my list would have also included some Marvin Gaye and Al Green.
Two guys who have contributed to the overpopulation of the planet, especially Al Green.
Barry White done his part, too.
Here’s a good example of “Northern Soul”…
Cool. Listening to that again reminds me to give a shout-out to Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions’ “It’s All Right.”
A buddy of mine had a Motown band — “The Chancellors” — that was playing this song at our junior-high dance the first time I summonsed the courage to dance with a member of the female persuasion I wasn’t related to.
Isn’t this so much better than more current music. It can’t just be a matter of getting old?
This is kind of like picking out the best guitarist, can’t do it. But just for me, Sam Cooke was the best.
Define “better.”
A lot of the time, it certainly looks like that. Then you meet the occasional weirdo (normally someone who makes a living from the music industry) who genuinely does seem to have liked the music they grew up with in the 50s or 60s, then music of the 70s, then music of the 80s, then music of the 90s. I’m thinking specifically of John Peel (British DJ), though there are probably more recent examples, and trans-Atlantic ones.
Lets see – better as improvement, more desirable or superior to later. But as I said, maybe an older ear. To clarify I would say that PCC is far more familiar and in tune with the youth of today than I, but I don’t think he will be putting up a list of his top ten rap or hip-hop tune.
It surprises me that some of my friends haven’t “moved beyond” the artists they liked when they were at school and university. One guy in particular, a very good guitarist, plays in a band called Journey to Boston, which kind of defines his musical universe. I find it odd that he knows so few of the contemporary artists I’m listening to these days.
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“Journey to Boston” — and you say this guy is still your friend? 🙂
(If they could work Kansas into their name, they’d have the trifecta of 70s-80s arena rock.)
But I know how that goes; our oldest friends, we love ’em despite their faults, like shit-taste in music.
Being put to the choice between Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, I can empathize with Buridan’s Ass — the starving donkey who, placed equidistant between food and water, is frozen there between the two and dies of inanition.
Forced to pick one, however, Imma go with Mr. Redding. Far as I’m concerned, soul music’s sun rises and sets up the Redding fundament. Because of the vast musical legacy he left behind, we sometimes forget that Otis died at just 26, a year younger than Jimi or Janis or Jim. Died six months after his breakout performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, only days after recording his mega-cross-over hit, “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay.” The mind boggles at what that man might’ve accomplished had he lived.
Nevertheless, for my all-timest virtuoso vocal soul performance, I hafta go off-list to Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind.” Never before or since has pathos been more purely laid down on vinyl than it was on that 1967 day in Muscle Shoals.
And let me mention one more tune in this Jamesian mold, one that might not ordinarily spring to mind when limning the soul music canon — Nina Simone’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” First time I heard that tune was on my local drive-time jazz & blues radio station. I was heading into one of those rotary turning circles — had to drive around it three times and pull over to the side to recover.
If you can listen to sister Nina sing that song and not feel nuthin’? Put a coupla fingers on your neck and feel around for your carotid. ‘Cause … you might be … fuckin’ … dead.
Man! I coulda written your post (almost). I was going to read all the post before posting, but had to stop hear and post.
Otis Redding was my vote too, but it is tough for me to choose favorites: there is just so damn much greatness available. Could as well have been Sam Cooke or Smokey (Ooh Baby Baby). But Otis has a huge backlog that I not only have in my collection, but listen to on streaming more than any other soul singer.
I agree that Nina Simone is wonderful (the song you mention and the album it is on, as well as her “Live in Europe” album (fairly rare) that re-introduced me to her in 1968).
My only disagreement might be Etta James, although I have a lot of her stuff and like her a lot. But after listening to Beth Hart’s more recent interpretations of “I’d rather go blind” (see her at recent Kennedy Center honors concert [for Buddy Guy], or her recent interpretation with Joe Bonamassa, and others). Definitely my most listened to song of the last 3-4 years.
Oh Hell – others have been poating videos here so I am gonna post 1 of the saeveral interpretations of Etta’s songs by Beth Har. Please seek out others.
Beth Hart doing “A change gonna come”
Many other examples of this as well (see esp. in studio video).
Fan-freakin’-tastic! Both tunes. BH is a belter, awright.
You know, I was really pleasantly surprised by Beyoncé’s turn as Etta James in Cadillac Records, including her version of “I’d Rather Be Blind.”
How about Al Green’s Let’s stay Together?
From your list it has to be Otis with an honourable mention for Sam Cooke.
I’d also like to nominate No More Drama by Mary J Blige and Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley (which is possibly not ‘soul’ as described, but he sings it with such ‘soul’) as a couple of favourites of mine.
Using a rather loose definition of soul as “music you pour your soul into,” I offer:
All Apologies by Nirvana.
I chose “What becomes of the Broken Hearted”. but I have to say the Aretha Franklin performance was one of the most moving I’ve ever seen in my life. I think part of the reason may be because she was never on my radar. I feel like I just met someone who I wish I had known my entire life. Yes I’m silly that way.
Voting for the most soulful song on an atheist website? I love the irony!
Jerry –
Since you mention Hall & Oates and the Righteous Brothers, how about a top “blue-eyed soul” list sometime?
Oh, hell, I’ll open the bidding right now with the Buckinghams’ cover (with lyrics) of the instrumental jazz classic penned by Miles Davis alums Joe Zawinul and Cannonball Adderley — “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
Probably has brown eyes, but she qualifies otherwise–Janis Joplin.
This may be trite but I’d go with Piece of my Heart, among other reasons because I love the call-&-response with the band in that one.
I voted for “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted,” but I think the version by
Joan Osborne in Standing in the Shadows of Motown is soul to the max–I prefer it to the original.
Indeed, she sings the hell out of it. She also does a bang-up version of “Heat Wave” in that concert.
Here would be my vote for most soulful song ever, by I am biased toward the Dells from Chicago.
“Stay in my corner” from 1965 in a live 1972 performance.
Something in the Dells’ sound made me realize that nobody here has given a shout out to the cynosure of Seventies soul, Philadelphia, and the great stable of Gamble & Huff groups, like the Delfonics, the O’Jays, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. I’ll make mine the Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart.”
Here’s my favorite: https://youtu.be/0vzIFrfvbh0
I should have spelled it out! It’s Etta James singing All I Could Do Was Cry. https://youtu.be/0vzIFrfvbh0
Thanks for these songs and annotations!
I watched all of them, ranked and sorted them 1-15, and added a handful to my go-outside-for-a-run music playlist.
Al Green – “Let’s Stay Together” – The Reverend Al knows something about love.
I put on a pot of coffee. Now all we need is a fist full of dexies and we can stay up all night talkin’ about (and listenin’ to) soul music, the way a Hubert Selby, Jr., or a Lester Bangs woulda done.
Fantastic choices here. Otis, Sam, Aretha . . . monster soul.
Far less known, but painful and powerful: I’m Not the One—Larry Banks
Good List. Other favorites:
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas/Nowhere To Run (1965)
Tina Turner/River deep, mountain high
Al Green /Take me to the river > take me to the river
Percy Sledge. Hands down.
Not even close.
Hell, just realized I spaced on what may be my favorite vocal soul performance ever (and a great civil rights anthem in its own right) Solomon Burke’s “None of Us Are Free.”
Percy Sledge’s song was great alright but I could never vote for a song or singer who was essentially a one hit wonder. Never followed up with anything approaching a significant contribution to the genre as most of the others did.
I’ve been off doing other things, but I wanted to link to list I came across some time ago, and just went out and found it. A year and 1/2 ago Soul Train published their list of the best of all time in this genre. People who voted in this contest should be interested in what a group who should be experts in this field have to say.
http://soultrain.com/2014/06/18/celebrating-35-years-black-music-month-top-10-soul-songs-time/
Thanks for this, Jerry. It made my day — ruined my day too, in that it’s been tough getting anything else done aside from listening to, thinking about, reading about, and writing about soul music — in comments here and in emails to the close friends and former lovers (scattered now around the four corners, many of ’em) with whom I discovered and shared this music over the years.
Seems there’s one condign way to cap it all off, and that’s with Arthur Conley’s paean to Sixties soul, “Sweet Soul Music”, with it’s name-checks and call-outs to the great soul singers from the 1965-1967 pocket in which you’ve said your own musical tastes were formed.
Enjoy it, man!
What? No “I’ve Been Lovin’ You Too Long”?
I want to put in a word for the Jackie Wilson, one of the greatest voices in rock’n’soul music. He possessed operatic lungs and spellbinding stage presence. Most readers are familiar with his hits “Lonely Teardrops” and “Higher and Higher”–here are live versions of the former (www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHT-WJX1gaY) and the former and latter (www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-R9z__WzI4).
Wilson’s most unlikely triumph was his jaw-dropping version of “Danny Boy,” one of his favorite songs (www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL8Qe6ns_r8), which he often performed live (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS9xhiudphU). One of Wilson’s biographers reports that he was booked to play in a New York club to an aged, very sedate, very non-rock’n’roll audience, which he soon whipped into emotional hysteria with “Danny Boy.” As the biographer put it, an elderly Jewish audience was wailing and in tears thanks to a young African American singer performing an old Irish drinking song! America in a glorious nutshell.
Incidentally, like Sammy Davis Junior, Wilson was attracted to Judaism and converted to the faith. He even recorded a version of “My Yiddishe Momme”! It’s part of his weirdly entertaining Al Jolson tribute album (www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXjxgLER7Lw).
I’d go with “Try a Little Tenderness” (cultural appropriation of white peoples music from the 1930’s) Redding’s “Sittin on the Dock of The bay” would also be in my top three.