Spotlight on AUPEO! Stations: Soulful

Once upon a time, way back when there were a few degrees of innocence still involved in urban living, popular music was beautiful. It had lush orchestrations, big beautiful arrangements and tense vocal harmonies, all screamed and cried onto wax. This music turned out to be so timeless that most of us, old or young, still recognize the biggest stars of this period by their first names; Otis, Tina, Diana, Stevie… the list really could be endless.

Our brand-new Soulful AUPEO! Station (in the R&B/ Hip-Hop section) offers a collection of all things soulful to both seasoned veterans and newcomers to the genre. It’s all there, from the gospel influenced early recordings of Garnet Mimms to the criminally under appreciated mixture of deep, funky yet mellow soul of Gloria Scott to the disco-funk of The Mary Jane Girls. Now this might sound scary to some, but what makes these songs timeless is that they are about feelings. To avoid further name dropping and other music-nerdy ways of simplifying things, have a look at one of the original Kings of Comedy, Steve Harvey getting the point across (things get interesting at around 1min. 10 secs.):

Recommended If You Like: some other-worldly vocals of Minnie Riperton on Adventures in Paradise, the sexual predator Betty Davis on her first self-titled album, the blues-soul and beautiful guitar playing of Little Beaver on Joey, the Roy Ayers influenced RAMP on Come into Knowledge or the blaxploitation sound of Willie Hutch on The Mack. It’s sometimes sweet, other times sweaty and often both at the same time. It’s oh so soulful. Now go on and get your superfreak on!