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 | | Singer Clarence Carter exemplified the gritty, earthy sound of Muscle Shoals R&B, fusing the devastating poignancy of the blues with a wicked, lascivious wit to create deeply soulful music rooted in the American South of the past and the present. |
 | | Arthur Conley sang and (with mentor Otis Redding) co-wrote the 1967 classic "Sweet Soul Music," arguably the finest record ever made about the genre it celebrates. |
 | | Percy Sledge will forever be associated with "When a Man Loves a Woman," a pleading, soulful ballad he sang with wrenching, convincing anguish and passion. |
 | | The older brother of Eddie Palmieri, Charlie Palmieri was every bit as gifted a pianist as his sibling, very percussive and responsive to rhythm while also flashing florid passages that were clearly the product of a classical education. |
 | | Herbie Mann played a wide variety of music throughout his career. He became quite popular in the 1960s, but in the '70s became so immersed in pop and various types of world music that he seemed lost to jazz. |
 | | Though never major hitmakers, the Los Angeles-based Vibrations were consistent performers through the '60s. |
 | | Probably the best-known soul guitarist in the world, Steve Cropper came to prominence in the early '60s, first with the Mar-Keys ("Last Night"), then as a founding member of Booker T. |
 | | The Fantastic Johnny C was born Johnny Corley on April 28, 1943, in Greenwood, SC. He joined the armed services at an early age, leaving Brewer High in Greenwood before graduating to enlist. |
 | | While Solomon Burke never made a major impact upon the pop audience -- he never, in fact, had a Top 20 hit -- he was an important early soul pioneer. |
 | | One of the greatest pure vocalists that deep Southern soul ever produced, James Carr is often mentioned in the same breath as Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, and Aretha Franklin in terms of the wrenching emotional power in his delivery. |
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 | | As the house band at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, Booker T. & the MG's may have been the single greatest factor in the lasting value of that label's soul music, not to mention Southern soul as a whole. |
 | | Of the major '60s soul stars, Wilson Pickett was one of the roughest and sweatiest, working up some of the decade's hottest dancefloor grooves on hits like "In the Midnight Hour," "Land of 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," and "Funky Broadway. |
 | | Often credited as having cut the first true soul record in 1959 with "You're So Fine," a host of '60s soul stars called themselves Falcons at one time or another, including founder Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett, Sir Mack Rice, and 100 Proof Aged in Soul's Joe Stubbs. |
 | | A truly incendiary deep soul performer. O. V. Wright's melismatic vocals and Willie Mitchell's vaunted Hi Rhythm Section combined to make classic Memphis soul during the early '70s. |
 | | Best known as "Fruko", Ernesto Estrada (born: Julio Ernesto Estrada) is one of the most influential players of pachanga, the rhythmic Latin dance music successor to the mambo and chacha. |
 | | A veteran who paid his dues for over a decade before getting his shot at solo stardom, Bobby Womack persevered through tragedy and addiction to emerge as one of soul music's great survivors. |
 | | One of the most influential soul singers of the 1960s, Otis Redding exemplified to many listeners the power of Southern "deep soul" -- hoarse, gritty vocals, brassy arrangements, and an emotional way with both party tunes and aching ballads. |
 | | Vocalist/pianist Calvin Scott teamed with guitarist/vocalist/composer Clarence Carter in the early '60s. |
 | | Al Green was the first great soul singer of the '70s and arguably the last great Southern soul singer. |
 | | The career of singer Don Covay spanned virtually the entirety of the R&B spectrum, from the electrifying rock & roll of his earliest records to the gritty, swaggering deep soul of his most enduring efforts -- the scope and diversity of his catalog no doubt contributed to his failure to enjoy consistent commercial success, however, and the general public is probably better acquainted with his songs than with his own renditions of them. |
 | | Although his songs were covered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Elvis Presley, country-soul pioneer Arthur Alexander remains largely unknown to the general listening audience -- nevertheless, his music is the stuff of genius, a poignant and deeply intimate body of work on par with the best of his contemporaries. |
 | | This Memphis group included some excellent vocalists, although they didn't enjoy as much success as some other Stax artists. |
 | | Bobby Enriquez had the nickname of "the Wildman," a title he earned through his very hyper piano playing. |
 | | Minus Booker T. Jones as well as Steve Cropper, the remaining members of Booker T. & the MG's (drummer Al Jackson Jr. |
 | | If contemporary blues has a long-term future in the 21st century, it's very likely that guitarist Larry McCray will continue to play a recurring role in its ongoing development. |
 | | His plaintive baritone equally conversant with R&B and country phrasing, Joe Simon married the two genres with startling success during the late '60s, adapting Nashville material to the soul sound and repeatedly coming up a winner. |
 | | O.C. Smith began as a jazz vocalist and later moved into country and R&B. The Louisiana vocalist was hired to replace Joe Williams in Count Basie's band in the early '60s after cutting some unsuccessful records for Cadence and others in the '50s. |
 | | Best remembered for his 1966 R&B chart-topper "Are You Lonely for Me," deep soul belter Freddie Scott was born April 24, 1933, in Providence, RI. |
 | | Not only is Billy Vera (born William McCord, Jr. on May 28, 1944 in Riverside, CA) a rock historian, he's made some rock history himself over the last quarter century. |
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 | | A talented flutist whose musical interest was never exclusively straight-ahead jazz, Hubert Laws exceeded Herbie Mann in popularity in the 1970s when he recorded for CTI. |
 | | An atmospheric flutist in a contemporary, fusion, and new age mode, and an adept composer whose best work is in the future. |
 | | One of the first great jazz flutists, a cool-toned tenor, and a fine (if infrequent) clarinetist, Sam Most is the younger brother of clarinetist Abe Most. |
 | | An excellent bop-oriented flutist, Holly Hofmann began on the flute when she was five. She had extensive classical training and, in 1984, when she moved to San Diego, Hofmann began playing jazz full-time. |
 | | The former pianist and music director for George Benson, Jorge Dalto continues to fuse pop, jazz and Afro-Latin influences. |
 | | Pianist Eddie Cano spent most of his career connecting the dots between jazz and Latin styles. He found an appreciative audience for a series of albums under his own name released in the '50s and '60s by labels such as Atco, Reprise, and RCA, his following similar to that of vibraphonist Cal Tjader and bandleader Les Baxter. |
 | | The flagship act for Fania Records, the Fania All-Stars popularized New York salsa during the 1970s by organizing concerts at larger and larger venues (from the Red Garter in Greenwich Village all the way to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx) that spotlighted not only the label's but the salsa world's biggest stars -- Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Johnny Pacheco, Rubén Blades, Hector Lavoe, Ismael Miranda, Cheo Feliciano, Bobby Cruz, Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez, and special guests like Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Eddie Palmieri. |
 | | Puerto Rican singer Tito Gomez started getting involved in the tropical scene when he teamed up with prominent artists Ray Barreto, Charlie Palmieri, and La Sonora Ponceña, among others. |
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 | | The expression "he's played on a million country records" is barely an exaggeration if said in description of this bassist, arguably one of the most recorded instrumentalists in music history. |
 | | Cousin to the late blues ballad singer Chuck Willis, Robert "Chick" Willis is primarily beloved for his ribald, dozens-based rocker "Stoop Down Baby. |
 | | The Showmen were one of the R&B groups to bridge the gap between doo wop and soul in the early '60s, creating a buoyant, energetic fusion of harmonies and propulsive R&B beats. |
 | | One of the most important figures in 1950s and early-'60s rock & roll to come out of New York, Richard Barrett has been badly served by history in terms of the recognition he is due. |
 | | After decades of toiling in obscurity (including a low-profile stint on Chess), Barbara Carr finally began to make a name for herself in the late '90s as a brassy, often X-rated belter in the Southern soul-blues vein. |
 | | With a name like the Magic Lanterns, one would expect a late-1960s band that might reflect the psychedelic side of the era's music -- when first heard of in 1968, they seemed to fit in with groups like Strawberry Alarm Clock and other trippy-sounding acts (what Bleeker Bob's in New York calls "Lounge Acts That Dressed Cool"), promising their own brand of incense and peppermints. |
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 | | Very little is known for certain about this group -- which may actually have been two groups, or possibly two incarnations of the same group. |
