I don't rank the artists, the criteria does and Ray just doesn't beat the guys ahead of him, that's all. I love his 50's sides, but as Bruce said even when rock crossed over Ray didn't join them on the other side until late '57 and didn't fully establish himself until "What'd I Say". As a result his commercial impact suffers compared to those who dominated both charts. His musical impact was off the charts, he had enormous influence, but The "5" Royales deserve more credit for soul than Ray, they did the exact same thing a few years earlier. They reworked their own earlier gospel records into soul - Let Nothing Separate Me became Help Me Somebody, which topped the charts. You can't give Ray primary influence for doing something that another group already did with equal success.

I'm not trying to cutdown Ray at all, but like a lot of big names (Dylan, Hendrix, Springsteen, U2) sometimes there's a tendency to let the name recognition factor overwhelm the evidence and slightly bump the artist in question up in people's mind, thinking they deserve to be higher because "he's a genius". Ray got the spot he deserved, when I update the list I'll take a look at every placement and make sure it still comes out that way, but I don't expect that one to change.

For the record, for Bruce and anyone else, THIS is fucking soul music. THIS is just as much 'soul'
as James Brown, The 5 Royales, Sam Cooke and anyone else.



This is where everything came together perfectly, beautifully and flawlessly.
The groove. The sense of urgency and 'pleading' in the vocals (the female part too). The overwhelming vibe of gospel-ish intensity.

I have to disagree. I see it as R&B. And even if it's soul, it's from almost three years AFTER James Brown did "Please, Please Please."

It's also not the original version of the song. That was done more than a year earlier by the song's writer, Nappy Brown, on the Savoy label:




I also don't think Sam Cooke made all that many soul records. I don't see any of his 50s records as soul, and I don't see things like "Cupid" and "Twistin' The Night Away" and "Wonderful World" and "Another Saturday Night" as soul either. Most of the remakes of these songs were by white rock artists.

I didn't say it was the FIRST soul record, Bruce. I said it simply defined the term soul as much as any of those arists.



Totally irrelevant as usual.
And besides, the horns and the female vocals in Ray's version add so much more to the song. This version sounds almost tame in comparison.



Actually I agree with you here. I do think I'll Come Runnin' Back To You is soul though, from '56.

It's from 1957.

Sounds like pop to me, especially with the white female chorus.

Whatever.
I think of it as a 'smoother' brand of soul, at least certainly in comparison to what James Brown was doing. But I still count it as soul.
But yeah he did a lot of clean pop stuff too. His voice was so spectacular that it transcended any cheesy arrangement though (like Jackie Wilson).

But then you have the awe-inspiring majesty that is A Change Is Gonna Come...

This is just dumb. Of course YOU rank the artists. If the criteria ranked the artists than everybody would rank them in the same exact order.

It's a good list overall, but everybody here would make some changes if they took over the list, so it's not the criteria that ranks them, it's the editor's judgment based on the criteria.

I disagree on both accounts. Some of Jackie's records are totally unlistenable (Night, All My Love, Alone At Last, etc...), and I'm not crazy about "Change." Too many fucking violins and shit. I much prefer "Bring It On Home To Me" and "That's Where It's At" as soul records.

That's what I meant. But his voice was so great that it totally made up for the cheesy arrangements. MUSICALLY, I dont like "Night" or "My Empty Arms" any more than you do, but vocally, they are out of this world.



Change is as soulful as it gets, and something as trivial as a violin isn't gonna change that for most people, imo.
It's Cooke's vocal delivery here that personifies soul so very much.

Would you consider Somebody Have Mercy to be soul?

Yes. Even with the harmonica.


"Good Times" too

But then he'd go and make some faggy thing like "Cousin Of Mine."

He does have a few tunes that I dont really care for, that are too lightweight "easy listening" stuff for me.
I never liked Cupid.

I did love his version of Little Red Rooster though...

More soul from Ray.

"Lonely Avenue" is R&B, not soul.

It's a little of both. Somewhat of a hybrid.

Bruce, on a couple of these, you said that Charles' record borrowed heavily from a gospel record. Wouldn't that support the idea that it's soul, given that in a nutshell, soul is gospel-sounding music with secular lyrics?