These days, soul music is a genre often stuck in the side aisle of the record store or passed off onto smoky cafés and '70s reunion shows. The originators of American soul music — Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and early James Brown — commandeered ears when they blasted onto the scene with this new style in the '50s and '60s. The movement has splintered into a number of subgenres worth exploring, including Detroit Motown soul, Stax Records Memphis soul, psychedelic soul, Philly soul, Chicago soul, and, now, downtown soul. That last category was invented by the local stone groovers of Ketchy Shuby in order to describe... More >>>