Sweet Soul Music

Peter Guralnick · first published 1986 · ISBN 9780316332736

A panoramic history of rhythm and blues and soul music from the 1950s through the 1970s, focusing on how gospel phrasing, country blues feeling, and modernist ambition merged in the work of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green. Guralnick traces how Southern souls moved north and south, how record labels created and destroyed careers, and how a sound came to define an era.