Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Some people will reel in disbelief and perhaps go on by shouting out the first names of assorted soul deities as I proclaim: The 1970s were the golden age of soul music. Of course, ’60s soul was fantastic, as the two volumes of Any Major’60s Soul compilations proved (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). But by the late 1960s and early ’70s soul had acquired such a breadth of variety which the still nascent form of the previous decade did not have, by force of progress. The soul shouters were giving way to smooth guys, often singing in falsetto, and the Muscle Shoal horns went out and the string arrangements came in. And Motown and Stax had lost their way. As smooth as ’70s often was, however, it still retained depth. For the first half of the decade at least, soul produced some of the most gorgeous sounds ever in music. Read more…