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Soul is sometimes defined as the essence of the human spirit.

In the popular music of the 1960s, soul meant something more tangible.

It was a shout of joy, a cry of pain...

and an emblem of uninhibited self-expression.

I describe soul music as something that touches me and gives me goose bumps.

And it could be a white person singing it, or a black person, or a purple person.

I don't care who's singing it as long as you can lift my spirit.

Everything we did live came from out of soul music.

The spiritual intensity...

the idea of going for...

both your spirit and your gut.

You're talking to somebody who's a music buff...

especially when it comes to black music.

Say it Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud by James Brown...

Isley Brothers, It's Your Thing.

I mean, I could go on and on.

There's this thing about soul...

you know, of abandoning yourself to the songs.

The normal definition for it would be...

it's black music or black people singing music, or what have you...

but I don't agree with that...

because I think that everybody has their own soul...

and I've heard the same song by 10 different people...

and their soul was applied to it.

If you feel music intensely...

and you express it that way honestly...

then it's soul.

It's tied a lot to, I think...

gospel music. I think it's secular gospel music.

Gospel music is really...

let's say, the bedmate...

to R & B music.

I remember Mount Moriah Baptist Church...

and the support that the people gave us.

When we became Gladys Knight and the Pips...

I was just turning eight then.

But we had our little church group...

before we had Gladys Knight and the Pips.

So it being my brother and sister and my cousins...

we all went to the same church.

So when we formed the group, that was the same group that went down...

to the Royal Peacock to perform on Sunday nights.

And the church would just migrate from Mount Moriah to the Royal Peacock.

It's amazing, back there like...

And then they had that, you know, that holler, you know...

And I loved that.

They were screaming, and I said, "My Lord!"

I guess your music...

I mean, what's in your body...

I mean, what's in your soul or the way you came up...

somehow or another will come out...

through your fingers or come out through your vocal chords or whatever.

Everyone who influenced me...

and everyone who I just idolized...

was a gospel singer:

Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin...

Tina Turner, Patti LaBelle...

they were all great gospel singers first.

This is a song that could be done as soulful and gospel...

Maybe. Let me see. Let me see how to do it.

If you ask me to

I just might change my mind

And let you in my life forever

Now, that might be soulful. Now, gospel.

If you ask me to

I just might change my mind

And let you in my life forever

Yeah, that's it.

Soul is synonymous with great voices and great entertainers.

Each one unforgettable.

Soul music is...

Soul music is...

It's just soulful.

- Gratifying. - How would I put it?

It's a feeling that you have to have.

It's not prim and proper.

It's funky.

James Brown.

"I got ants in my pants and I need to dance.

"Some big fine mama, come give me a chance."

James Brown:

That's the funkiest man in the entire world.

He creates some of the most creative...

revolutionized rhythms for his time and funk.

I mean, he's an originator. He's an original.

I remember, first time I had a chance to go see James Brown was...

The line was so long, but I didn't mind standing in that line.

Just to get in there to see him.

Stayed in there to see three shows because he had some bands that just...

put people in frenzies.

James Brown's influence was one of the most powerful.

I mean, it's evident in the groups that can halfway dance, you know.

It's attitude.

He's gonna scream. He's gonna yell. He's gonna split. He's gonna dance.

And when he says, "One, two, three, four. Hit it..."

he's giving the MCs something to get ill on.

James Brown is a master. There's one James Brown.

The things that he has achieved has opened the doors for many black artists.

There'll never be another James Brown.

James Brown's stagecraft set a new standard...

but from the late '50s into the '70s he had plenty of competition.

From the grittiest of blues stylists to the most sublime of gospel balladeers.

Sam Cooke was very important in the development of rock 'n' roll.

I first heard Sam Cooke singing gospel music...

when he used to sing with the Soul Stirrers...

and that's when I was a kid.

So he was one of my major influences.

From childhood, he was always talented.

That was truly a gift of God.

I mean, he had a voice that was mesmerizing.

He was one of the very first black people to play the Copacabana...

and make this grand splash, you know.

And he had this big billboard on Broadway.

I mean, he did it like it was... I mean, first-class. Go, Sam.

He used to always say music is simplicity.

He said people would buy the news if you sung it with a melody.

Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson...

were rivals in the industry.

But they were good friends.

After they'd leave the stage, Sam and Jackie would hang out together.

They were very good friends.

One of the most interesting people we ever introduced is Jackie Wilson...

who had an untrained operatic style delivery...

but who was a gymnast and a former boxer.

Take that conglomeration, put it together...

what a magnificent entertainer. They called him Mr. Excitement.

He was just a great performer.

You talk about Michael Jackson spinning? You should see Jackie Wilson spin.

He would fight at the drop of a hat.

We played at New Orleans once...

when they had a segregated audience...

and the black people sat on one side of the stage...

and the white people were on the other side of the stage.

And performers got whiplash trying not to insult anybody while they performed.

And some big cracker policeman...

said something to Jackie and he popped him.

They almost killed him.

But, I mean, that was the kind of person you were dealing with, with Jackie.

His temper was as great as his talent.

That late '60s-R&B-type music...

was probably some of the best music we've turned out...

as an industry.

Each sound, each city had its own identity.

The sound could never be duplicated from Philadelphia.

The sound could never be duplicated from Detroit.

The sound could never be duplicated from Memphis.

The sound could never be duplicated from Atlantic Records.

We always went for a very strong bottom, very pronounced bass...

a good, rounded bass sound, strong bass drum.

In other words, clean funk.

Jerry Wexler's always been a huge supporter of black music.

And Atlantic began its career in black music.

Ray Charles was the Michael Jordan of music.

Ray could do anything and everything and make it believable.

He was walking up the stairway and out to the exit...

and I just happened to be there...

and I touched his shoulder and it was... I thought I'd touched the Lord.

I have a very personal reason for loving Ray like I do.

Not only for the fact of his talent...

because he is one of the most talented people ever...

But the very first professional gig that I ever played in my life...

was we played the Ray Charles show at the Apollo theater in New York.

We'd never played a show like that...

so we didn't realize we needed professional band arrangements.

We didn't have them.

We had what we call onion skins, or lead sheets.

He sat there and did an arrangement...

to both of our songs that we were singing on that show...

just dry. Just like that.

I love Ray Charles.

He's like that vintage bottle of wine.

He's an antique.

He is just too good to be true.

Soul music to me is something that...

It portrays what you are...

and it digs. It can go as deep as you allow it to go.

And then it releases you.

And you feel great.

That soul music is good for the soul.

There was so much soul music then. Great soul music.

Wilson Pickett was just amazing.

Well, Wilson, you know, his reputation precedes him...

and that's why they call him '"the Wicked Mr. Pickett. '"

I had been listening to some of the stuff that he had sang on...

and almost invariably, on these gospel things...

he would go into this "I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour to see my Jesus."

He would go into this chant...

and it sort of, to me, was like an identity for him.

Wilson was a crazy man.

I loved him.

Wilson was the king of funk.

Wilson was a fantastic singer, entertainer, too, you know.

Most of these artists you're talking about are unique.

They were the Memphis sound.

They represented that area of the country...

that produced that music.

That old era of Stax, with that soulful music that came from Memphis.

We were in a very large room.

We were in a movie theater...

which was not a giant theater, but it was a pretty good-sized theater.

I've had a lot of musicologists and a lot of musicians...

refer to the Stax records of having this incredible delayed backbeat.

And a lot of that really came by accident.

The first time I heard Otis Redding...

I was driving through some Southern city...

and we were listening to WLAC, a big radio station, 50,000 watts...

that came out of Nashville, Tennessee.

And I heard this man who was just moaning and groaning...

These arms of mine

as only he could do.

And I said, "What is this guy doing? What is this sound?"

I watched him and knew he was going to be a star.

I've never seen a man master a stage so fast in my life.

He made me learn how to master a stage after watching him.

Soul music is, I think, almost a state of mind.

And you express that state of mind...

very emotionally.

My concept of it is...

it is music that comes from the heart.

It might just be one word you want to bring across...

a certain way to put across your point.

And I think that's what the soul is.

It's outside of some other music that is very structured.

You can take some structured singers...

that became soul singers, they took the structure out of it.

They base it on structure, but then they just do what they feel impulsively.

Aretha Franklin...

as evidenced by how many people refer to her today...

is the living encyclopedia...

of soul music.

Look at how many people borrow from and emulate...

and idolize what she contributed.

Her voice is just effortless.

She doesn't even have to try, you know. It just comes out. She's blessed.

She's definitely blessed.

And I remember her songs around my house a lot.

As far as how to record her, we just kept doing what we had been doing...

with our rhythm and blues artists...

to let this sound emerge and be heard.

And not try to make it palatable to a white audience.

The idea was to record her with great musicians...

and put her at the piano, and let her sing and play for herself.

One of the reasons for some of the hits...

at Atlantic was my gospel background...

being merged with the popular or R & B stylings.

Aretha, gospel, and soul: Totally synonymous.

I think you look back and you look at...

all the performers that came before you...

and they make their own maps, you know...

and they leave them for you...

if you care to read them.

There's an art to it, and those guys were the masters.

All the soul greats, they were the masters at it.

Then you've got quite a few others...

but those legends show you how to do it.

Apart from its gospel and blues heritage...

soul had tangled roots in the world of independent record companies...

which created music for a segregated audience.

They were called at that time '"race records. '"

And it would have the word '"race'" on the record.

The strong ones were...

black artists coming through the independent record companies.

At that time, the music was being controlled by...

Chess, Checker, and Argo record company.

Atlantic record company.

Companies like that, that were smart enough...

to sign up black artists...

and merchandise and market these black artists.

And these entrepreneurs would get in their car...

and go down South...

and sell the records themselves because no record shop would take these records.

So it became soul music...

and black people were supposed to be the ones doing it.

And then it got to be so good...

then everybody else wanted to adopt soul music.

When we recorded Little Latin Lupe Lu...

the white stations wouldn't play it because they quote...

The quote was that it was "too hard rock".

What it was, is it just sounded too black for their white stations.

Now, we didn't know that at the time...

but the one thing that we're most proud of...

is that the black audience accepted us...

just point-blank. And they didn't have to.

They just flat didn't have to...

but the great thing about the black audience...

is that if you are emotionally cutting it...

that's what it's all about.

There were, in those days, four theaters that you were required to play...

to prove that you had sort of made it.

They were called the Litchman chain, and it consisted of:

The Regal theater in Chicago...

the Howard in Washington.

There was the Uptown in Philadelphia...

And the Apollo in New York City.

You had to play those four theaters.

On stage at the Apollo Theater...

three generations of soul singers reminisced.

It was the only really black theater that...

This was like Broadway... I mean, this was like heaven.

To young artists, this was hallowed ground.

Every great entertainer had been here.

Like your Otis Reddings and your James Browns.

You got a chance to become friends with them...

and talk with them...

and they give you little tidbits on what you should do.

So you not only got educated about show business here...

you got educated about the world and about how people are.

The Apollo Theater and the theater circuit...

and the different clubs that we used to play...

that people considered part of the chitlin circuit...

it was our playground.

It was where we learned our craft.

The importance of the Apollo... It just means so much to so many people.

It could have been some place in Peoria, but it's not.

It happened to be in New York City and that's where a lot of things happened.

And there are so many great artists that came out of that area...

and off of that stage.

I remember having to put my hot dogs on the light bulb.

We had five shows a day...

and that was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner...

because we would play cards with Tommy Hunt...

and maybe The Dells and The Spinners... I don't know who else.

Dionne Warwick, whoever...

But they would always take my money. They would always win.

One of the things I remember the most about the Apollo...

is the first time we walked in there, they had a mural on the foyer wall.

Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis...

Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine...

All these people were on that mural.

For me, those were the glory days.

I mean, I got to see one of those magic Apollo Nights...

with James Brown and Otis Redding on the same bill.

And this is my Oscar, you know.

These are my Oscars. These are my memories.

These are more precious to me...

than any recording contract or...

an award that I could receive...

because they were mine, and I still keep them inside.

The range of the chitlin circuit mirrored the scope...

of the music pouring out of the studios from the East Coast to the Midwest.

In Detroit, Motown reigned supreme.

The songs were really songs...

that reached all across the world...

and they reached people probably at that time...

when Motown just opened up the doors to everybody.

See, I was a big Motown child.

I was a heavily influenced Motown child.

For me, it was...

whatever the Beatles meant to those screaming teenagers...

Motown meant to me.

I don't know if they were listening to us, but we were certainly listening to them.

I don't think we were trying to copy them by any means...

but you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing a Motown record.

What made Motown Motown was Berry Gordy...

who is one of the most unique people, I'm sure, to ever be on this planet.

And to have him at the helm of what was going on...

was just the most wonderful thing...

for a music-making young person...

who had access to Detroit at that time.

We first knew him as a songwriter.

In fact, when he started Motown... When he started this record company...

whatever he was going to name it...

He asked us would we go with him to that company.

We just said no, because we didn't think he had a chance.

We said "absolutely not."

Black guy with a tape recorder starting a record company.

Yes, right. Okay.

The first one is so magical.

Because you can see all your dreams come true.

Just, "Yes! It's here!"

Berry had a vision.

He had a real good, solid sense...

of vision, and imagination, and organization.

He knew how to put it together so that he could end up with something...

that ended up being what they call "The sounds of young America."

And it was very different.

The reason we started Motown was because nobody was paying us.

Berry would produce our records in the early days...

and put them out to other companies, and nobody really paid us.

So I went to Berry's office one day, and he was saying:

"Man, this record is so big. I don't know what to do with it...

"because I don't know who to put it with because nobody's been paying us."

So I said, "Why don't you just go national with it, man?"

He said, "What?"

I said, "Why don't you go national with it?"

He said, "But I'm not set up to go national."

I said, "You can be. Nobody's paying us anyway.

"If we lose money, we lose money for ourselves.

"Why don't you just go?" So he did.

We came out with Please Mr. Postman. Smash!

Right on the heels of Please Mr. Postman...

we came up with Shop Around, which was just...

So that's how it happened.

The real Smokey that I love is the songwriter Smokey...

the Smokey who writes lyrics...

like Tracks of My Tears...

and "Ooo baby baby, I'm just about at the end of my rope...

"but I can't stop trying, I can't give up hope."

Come on, please. That says it all, you know?

Ooo Baby Baby was a song...

that actually started live on stage.

We... When I say we, I mean the Miracles and me...

started onstage one night, just singing:

Ooo baby baby

I started singing it, the guys fell in in the harmony...

started singing, "Ooo baby baby."

The people went crazy.

So we said, '"Man, people like that so much...

'"we should do a record: Ooo Baby Baby."

So we came home, finished up the song...

went to the studio, recorded Ooo Baby Baby.

And that's where it came from.

We could go on a 51-nighter tour.

And as soon as you got home...

and took a bath or whatever you wanted to do...

and got yourself together, you went to Hitsville.

Why? Because everybody was gonna be there.

We'd pull up in front of the house on the first day...

We got in '62, I think, it was.

And we watched Supremes, or the Temps.

Little Stevie would be there.

You could hear him upstairs playing on the drums...

and blowing his little harp.

Marvin Gaye might be pulling up...

and he's talking to his wife, Anna, who's Berry's sister.

The Temptations would probably be down in the studio...

recording at this time.

Holland-Dozier-Holland is in a room writing.

Meanwhile, you just walk up and notice something for you to do.

Or you just come to see what everybody else is doing.

It was really like a meeting place at that time...

because it exploded. I mean, things were happening.

The Supremes were the number one group in the country...

Temptations were having their hit...

the Four Tops, we'd just had Baby, I need Your Loving.

The excitement was just all in the air.

And every day almost, you could see somebody else's dream come true.

The most important thing in the world...

that could happen in my teenage years...

was when the Supremes made their next appearance.

It was like news throughout the neighborhood.

All their songs were so great.

When I listen to some of the Supremes, like their catalog...

those girls had songs up the yin-yang.

I said, "How many songs have you girls got?"

Not "have," but "got."

I mean, they had more songs than they should have.

They should have gave me two of them.

Our acts were groomed from the very first signing.

See, every act inspired the other acts...

because every act wanted to be good...

because the Motown acts were trained to be good.

They were immaculate, most of the people that you're talking about.

These people here were, like, tailor-made. I mean, they were immaculate.

Very colorful, very well-groomed.

The Temptations were the best of that era.

I used to call them...

My pet name for them was The Five Deacons...

because they had this church harmony, and they were just awesome.

I mean, with Melvin way down on the bottom...

and Eddie way up on the top...

and all the harmonic sounds in between them...

Those brothers could blow.

I wrote My Girl probably in about 10, 20 minutes.

And every time in between the shows at the Apollo...

while the movie was playing...

I would take the Temptations downstairs on the stage...

and we would work on My Girl.

I would always let the Temptations make up their own backgrounds...

because they were masters at it.

They would be doing stuff that I would never think of...

for background vocals...

All that, you know?

So I always let them make up their own backgrounds.

And then when we got home, I recorded it on them.

And it's one of those songs that has just lived on and on...

and I'm very proud of it.

I idolized the Temptations because I was a street corner singer...

and these guys were the ultimate singing group.

I think one of the most amazing days of my life was spent here...

and that was in June of 1985.

I was asked to be part of the reopening festivities here...

and I was honored to be asked to do that...

and I wanted to bring something into it that was a part of my beginnings...

so I asked Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin to join John and myself.

It was one of those moments...

where the past, the present, the future all come together.

The Motown sound was a 24-hour-a-day thing...

that people tried to develop and it was made out of love...

to help each other win.

They would cut five different tracks...

with five different producers...

and then they would come in with five different sets of songwriters...

and six different lyric writers or whatever...

and then they would cut it with three, four, or five different artists.

Berry was smart enough to realize...

that that music had an appeal beyond the black community.

It would be better if everybody liked it.

So he didn't make it colorless, it was truly black music...

but it appealed to everybody all over the world.

You know, Marvin was a unique talent.

We would go by the studio...

you could almost depend on Marvin being there...

or being somewhere creating something.

And because he was such a giver, it made the people around him...

want to be of that spirit, too.

When we first started Motown, we had five employees...

and he said, "We're going to make music with a great beat...

"with some great stories."

And that's what we did.

We made music with a great beat, with some great stories.

He said, "Our stories are going to be such that anybody can listen to them.

"They will not be offensive.

"And we're just going to make music."

Eventually, he adopted the slogan, "The sound of young America"...

'cause that's what we were.

The Jackson Five was the first people that I could relate to.

Those are young black kids doing something that I like to do.

I used to kiss the TV when Michael came on.

Please, I used to love Michael Jackson.

In the Jackson Five, I really liked Randy at the time.

I mean, I loved Michael, but I was after Randy.

Everybody had their own one, you know, that...

Because the older girls liked Jermaine. I think Michael...

Randy was around our age. I think Michael was a little older.

But everybody had their own. Michael was mine.

Oh, my God! I used to kiss the television.

To this very day, and on and on...

Motown will have the songs...

that people will want to continue to record...

and do over and over.

The only music I ever heard as a kid was street music, R & B music...

Not so much the blues. And church music. I sang in church.

Came out of the Philadelphia sound.

It's like the Motown sound, I guess.

Philadelphia, we're very special by having our own sound.

I was looking for those special talents...

coming out of the urban community.

My first move was to make a deal with Gamble and Huff...

who were the great producers of the era.

I think the Philly sound...

was an extension of our experiences in Philadelphia.

It was a little bit of jazz, a little bit of gospel...

a little classical...

and when me and Huff got together, that was it.

It was like...

it was meant to be.

When we wrote for the O'Jays...

I would think about how dynamic Eddie Levert and Walter were...

and also William.

We couldn't wait till the O'Jays got to town so we could rehearse.

It was like a certain anxiety there that was, like, indescribable.

Kenny and Leon had an innate ability...

to write about what was going on.

I think Gamble and Huff...

are the premier message writers.

Mr. Gamble is a genius, absolute genius...

at bringing forth...

situations and talking about situations that exist.

We, on purpose, tried to put different messages in the music...

that were relative to that particular time...

but we weren't the first ones to do that.

As a matter of fact, I like to tell people, oftentimes...

that Curtis Mayfield's songs...

kind of ushered in the Civil Rights Movement.

We were tired as hell. We weren't going to take it anymore.

As Prince says, "The sign of the times."

The times were reflected in the music.

I think, in part, the music affected the movement...

and the movement affected the music.

However, from my perspective...

and the view from my particular bridge, it makes me want to say...

that the music affected the movement more.

Free at last, free at last.

Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

In the 60s...

when James Brown came out with his rendition...

of I'm Black and I'm Proud, I think it was something that was needed.

Because the country was setting new standards at that time...

and, of course, you know, it was...

We were trying to gain equality for our people.

So James Brown has made a great contribution to all of that...

with soul music.

There was a message then. There's a message now.

The message is probably a little more in-your-face type of message...

like that reminds me of Run-D.M.C.'s...

I'm proud to be black, y'all and that's a fact, y'all

You know, it's the same type of thing.

So once again, the same way that you get...

samples from those songs...

you also can listen to what they were saying...

and it can influence you. That music can influence you.

I think just the nature of black music makes it...

almost like cell division.

It just constantly grows and builds off of itself.

The golden age of soul was the 1960s.

But the sounds of that era still echo...

in the music and popular culture of America today.

The emotion, the artistry, the runs...

I think that is what creates soul.

You know, when people ask me...

why the music is still around...

I've been doing it for 35 years professionally.

It was here when I came.

It will be here when I leave.

Because the messages and the melodies...

are infinite.

All of the movies that we go to see...

you look at TV shows like China Beach...

and there's Diana Ross and the Supremes singing Reflections.

You know, you listen to songs...

by acts in other musical genres...

by rock 'n' roll acts, by just other acts who are successful...

and they all pay homage to R & B and soul music...

of the '60s, '50s, and '70s.

I think that soul music is around, is going to be around...

because it's the essence...

it's the life of the music industry soul music.

Soul music never loses time...

and it's always timely.

It can't be outdated...

and it's never going to be old hat.

Soul music is just like something that haunts you...

and that will be with you for the rest of your life.

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