MR PITIFUL

What is Soul?  If the blues had a baby and they called it rock'n'roll, then soul was the child of gospel and R&B, with more than a touch of country thrown in.  It was music that had gone to church, and remembered the lessons it had learned there.  It was a deep, truly heartfelt sound.  Soul was what you got when Brother Ray Charles changed the lyrics to an old gospel song he'd probably sung growing up in Florida and released it as "I Got A Woman" in 1954.  Soul was James Brown and the Famous Flames' "Please Please Please."  It grew from the parentage of B. B. King and the Soul Stirrers, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Bobby "Blue" Bland and Hank Williams.  It was nurtured on the streets of Memphis TN and Macon, Georgia, in the juke joints or the clubs that made up the chitlin circuit, and grew up to be the sound of the south for a generation.  And make no mistake, soul, true soul, was southern.  (Marshall, J.   2007)

PHOTOS BY BRUCE HENDERSON

Roanoke Virginia