I need help discovering great early 60's R&B artists and music...
January 29, 2022 6:31 AM   Subscribe

Recently fell in absolute love with singers like Faye Adams and Ruth Brown and their sound. Need to know where I can lots more of the same!

Bonus points for any internet radio stations, NYC nightclubs who cater to this sound, record stores, etc. I want to hear your favorites!
posted by Lipstick Thespian to Media & Arts (7 answers total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: You want Retro Soul Radio London. It is an absolute trove of amazing R&B and soul. Gets into the 80s and even some new stuff, but there is tons of old school perfection. It's almost the only thing we listen to at home.
posted by dazedandconfused at 6:49 AM on January 29, 2022


Best answer: More soul than R&B but there's quite a bit that will cross over for you, DJ Beyondadoubt has several playlists of great old, amazing soul songs from that era.

The Numero Group's reissues might be worth checking out too. Their Eccentric Soul series especially is great, but all their soul offerings are pretty solid. They do have a R&B filter on their site, but I'll admit i'm not as familiar with those offerings specifically.

His show focuses more on newer soul movements (and older ones that I didn't know existed; chicano soul from LA? A thing, and very good thing!), but Chris Nakayama has a show on our local low power station called Beaches, and would likely have lots of crossover with what you're looking to get at. you'll find a good mix of older and modern soul and R&B on his show, and I almost always find something that I end up throwing on rotation at home. This is one of the individual humans that I would directly reach out and ask that question of.

If you're looking for more blues influence, Mr Ghost Goes to Town often plays phenomenal blocks of Blues music, and the archives might be worth checking out. His stuff skews older than the era you're looking for, but might also scratch the itch.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:23 AM on January 29, 2022


Best answer: Funky16Corners has a tremendous collection of mixes, many food themed.
posted by winesong at 9:13 AM on January 29, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I highly recommend more work for you, namely reading the newest, illustrated edition of Showtime at the Apollo, which will give you a phonebook-deep list of other artists to listen to. My favorite find out of that was the original R&B version of Fever.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 3:18 PM on January 29, 2022


Funky 16 Corners! TIME TRAVEL

Funky 16 was part of a whole group of amazing Music blogs I fell into when starting grad school and trying to figure out what kind of a grownup to be, back in the mid-2000s.

For virtual crate-digging, try Soul Sides - the archives from the early 2000s! Oliver Wang compiled a great CD of re-issues - it’s in the banner.

Another amazing set of CDs was Dave Gordon’s Deep Soul Treasures. Put any one of those tracks in YouTube and get ready to fall down the rabbit-hole.

That review is from Sir Shambling’s Deep Soul Heaven, an incredible resource. He’s had to add audio watermarks to his tracks, but it’s still a mind-boggling collection of good shit.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:24 PM on January 29, 2022


John Waters doesn’t mess around: one of my favorite records is the soundtrack to Hairspray (the original movie with Ricki Lake and Divine, NOT the musical!). Favorites:

"I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)" by The Ikettes
"Shake a Tail Feather" by The Five Du-Tones
"You'll Lose a Good Thing" by Barbara Lynn
"Nothing Takes the Place of You" by Toussaint McCall
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:29 PM on January 29, 2022


Reclaimed Soul on Vocalo. Ayana Contreras does podcasts about lesser known soul, as well as mixes.
posted by goatdog at 6:39 AM on January 30, 2022


« Older Can you make NFTs make sense to me?   |   19th-Century Labor Songs Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.