CHAPTER 18 | SOUL MUSIC IN THE 1960s 459SOUL MUSIC IN THE 1960s
Beneath the surface unruliness and rebelliousness of 1960s youth culture, the
new popular music had opened up an expressive territory in which singers, play-
ers, and songwriters found almost limitless possibilities in styles and moods. It
was an era when a young musician could aspire to be both artistically serious and
commercially successful. Jazz had developed heightened artistic aspirations with
the bebop musicians of the 1940s; other popular styles followed suit in the 1960s.
The expansion of expressive possibilities is nowhere more to be found than
in soul music, the black popular music of the 1960s. Like soul jazz in relation
to hard bop, soul music differed from R&B primarily in the greater infusion of
black gospel elements, a stylistic mixture pioneered in the 1950s by Ray Charles,
though the term soul music did not become widespread until the mid-1960s.
Until the 1960s, white control of the music business had been taken for
granted. But with the decade’s new patterns of black-white exchange, star per-
formers won more independence, and the balance of power began to shift.
Racial interaction changed too. More white singers and players tried to match
the emotional intensity of black gospel and blues performers, and more white
listeners became their fans.THE GODFATHER OF SOUL: JAMES BROWN
The career of singer-song writer-dancer-bandleader James Brown
fl ourished in this climate of black-white exchange. Brown played
drums and guitar as a teenager in northeastern Georgia. Decid-
ing to learn piano, he “got all the Hit Parade books and learned all
the pop tunes,” he later recalled, admiring especially numbers by
Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Another inspiration came from
the black church, whose atmosphere impressed Brown deeply.
He remembered one revival service featuring a preacher who
screamed, stamped his feet, and dropped to his knees. “The peo-
ple got into it with him, answering him and shouting and clap-
ping time.” The experience stuck with Brown, who from then on
studied preachers closely and imitated them.
Brown’s fi rst big break came in the mid-1950s, when he
began recording for King Records in Cincinnati. Having scored a
national hit with “Please, Please, Please” (1956), he started touring
with his vocal group, the Famous Flames, and a large band, and
by the early 1960s the James Brown Show was an evening-length
revue built around the star’s energy. Maintaining a strenuous
performing schedule and billed as “the hardest-working man in
show business,” Brown took a blue-collar approach to his pro-
fession. “When you’re on stage,” he wrote, “the people who paid
money to get in are the boss, even if it cost them only a quarter.
You’re working for them.” At the same time, Brown made sure his
musicians knew they were working for him; tales of his strict con-
trol of every aspect of their performance are legendary. Brown
developed a charismatic presence, not only as a singer but also asK James Brown
(1933–2006), seen here
performing in 1969, earned
his reputation as “the
hardest-working man in
show business.”172028_18_440-467_r3_sd.indd 459 23/01/13 11:02 AM