THE GENRE PROJECT - January 2 - Southern Soul

Genre of the Day - Southern Soul, Album of the Day - Otis Blue by Otis Redding

Genre - Southern Soul

Album - Otis Blue by Otis Redding

Today’s randomly selected genre is Southern Soul, a genre any American is certainly familiar with but is also one I do feel a fair amount of familiarity with, albeit not extensively, because of my love for Etta James and Aretha Franklin. Southern soul is at its core fusion music, a marriage of various Black foundational music genres blues, R&B, and gospel. Southern soul is also arguably perhaps the most symbolic—at least in the United States—example of intersection between music’s influence on politics, as many of the iconic songs to come out of the genre became powerful musical symbols and anthems for the Civil Rights movement, and are found on this album by way of Respect and A Change is Gonna Come, although Redding’s versions weren’t the most well known of these songs. Southern soul is quite symbolic of genre as a hallmark of a time and place—with a sound that embodies the joy of community formed through close-knit Black churches and communities and the frustration with the racism that loomed over the American South on the precipice of the end of segregation. 

It’s no wonder then that Otis Redding is perhaps the artist most distinctly associated with the sound of Southern soul, although I wouldn’t say I particularly knew Otis Redding prior to listening to this album apart from a couple of his most famous songs. He died in a plane crash at age 26, but prior to this tragedy he brought Southern soul to the world, touring across the United States and Europe. He embodies the genre’s sensibilities in a way perhaps no other artist does, given his background growing up in Georgia and recording at the Mecca of Southern soul in Memphis’ Stax Records’ studio. 

Otis Blue, the #1 RYM Southern soul album, despite not containing really any of his most recognizable hits (sure, Respect is here, but even in the context of this being his album and it being his song that song’s lyrics are simply too inextricable from Aretha’s all-time recording of it), is a marvelous showcase of the genre’s characteristics, from the dynamic and plentiful horns to the focus on the singular strength of Redding’s voice. There are no background singers throughout the album, which allowed me to appreciate the depth of his voice. It has a certain roughness to it but is extraordinarily emotive and tender when need be. Redding adeptly injects energy into the dance romp of Shake, the teary-eyed blues of I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, and the frenetic release of Satisfaction. He is an excellent interpreter of a varied range of material here, and anchored by the sonic cohesiveness of the album, he creates one of the finest packages of vocals I’ve heard. Janis Joplin, one of his admirers, described his style of singing as ‘pushing’ the song rather than ‘sliding over it,’ which is the best description I've heard of it. In listening, it seems he’s pushing up the words from deep in his soul - it’s only fair that he earned the title of soul music’s king.

P.S. - The strangest thing about this album has to be its cover, which uses a stock image of a white woman (who still hasn’t formally been identified?!) rather than a picture of Redding. Some have suggested that this was the reason for this album’s success as it was one of the first substantially-successful-enough soul LPs to increase the focus on the part of labels to create cohesive soul music LPs. This helped diversify the market from just rock LPs, which also shows how powerful a singular album and sound—and, of course, its visual representation—can be as a watershed moment for the still complicated issue of racial representation in popular music.