What is soul? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question but I'm not sure I really know. In my ignorance I used to lump soul and disco together and well, don't shoot me, used to think it was music for girls. Of course I'm all woke now, a reconstructed male if you like and happy to get in touch with my feminine side and let music touch my soul, and plenty has over the years.
Leaving aside semantics I listen a lot to Michael Kiwanuka and am pretty sure he counts as soul. Generally though it's another genre I've never really got into, maybe the old instincts still edge against it.
Aretha Franklin? Everybody knows she is the queen of soul like everyone knows that Diana was the princess of hearts, even if you don't buy the sentiment you understand where it's coming from.
Many of these songs were familiar, maybe from the radio, maybe some from short failed relationships ("what do you mean you don't like the Smiths, what's this "soul disco" stuff you keep putting on"). I've also a probably unfair prejudice against cover versions and can well remember the torment of receiving Top of the Pops albums for Christmas, the only consolation being the saucily dressed young ladies on the sleeves (yes, I wouldn't see them as acceptable now). I'll admit though that Aretha's voice lifts them a little above the run of the mill cover versions you get on dodgy compilation albums and cruise ships house bands. It wasn't bad at all but half way through I was thinking of Dusty Springfield. Ah Dusty, now she was a singer and alright, she might not have written her own songs either but she was my mum's favourite and we grew up with her and oh, what a voice. Was Dusty soul? Definite similarities between the two.
Anyway, enough rambling in lieu of an intelligent dissection of the music. I quite liked some of it but it's not really my thing, even if Dusty is. I'm going to give it a six though.