A three-part docuseries chronicling the journey of soul music, from its birth out of gospel and R&B in the 1960s, when it delivered an assertive, integrated vision of black America, and produced its first generation of stars including Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.
How, in the 70s and 80s, a second coming of soul men offered a black female audience slow jams and sexual healing.
How inequality, poverty and racism drove black American musicians to a harder soul sound in the late 60s and early 70s.
This first episode travels through the South, from Muscle Shoals in Alabama to Stax in Memphis, taking a detour north to Detroit, to explore how Motown's most soulful achievement showed the whole world a successful, sophisticated image of black people, at a time when Motown musicians themselves were subject to the same treatment as any black American.
A three-part docuseries chronicling the journey of soul music, from its birth out of gospel and R&B in the 1960s, when it delivered an assertive, integrated vision of black America, and produced its first generation of stars including Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.
Benjamin Whalley
BBC Worldwide Productions ,
