(ThyBlackMan.com) Soul music is a genre that gave way to and inspired the likes of disco and funk as the 70s closed in. A form of soul that always existed was southern soul. It’s that often dirty, vulgar, fusion of the storytelling and comedy of deep South blues and the bounce of soul.
If you’ve been an album store or gas station and seen CD covers with particularly suspect looking artwork, you’re either looking at a locally (and possibly illicitly) made mixtape or a southern soul album.
And it has some of the best storytelling in Black music! When I went into Marvin Sease’s 1987 self-titled album, I touched on this without mentioning some of the prime examples of the genre. So, let’s dive into that with five southern soul albums for you to groove to.
Millie Jackson – E.S.P (Extra Sexual Persuasion) (1983)
For me, this is the ultimate Millie Jackson album. Well, it’s tie between E.S.P and Back to the S..t! Jackson’s 1983 release doesn’t have all the club bounce that you normally run into on 1990s and 2000s southern soul releases but it has all of the raunchiness. It would probably be more accurate to say this southern disco or proto-southern soul.
E.S.P can sometimes be in R&B territory but it has that no holds barred punch that R&B tends to lack throughout an album. If there’s only one album to decide to listen to on this list, I’d say this is it hands down.
Standout Tracks: Too Easy Being Easy, This Girl Could Be Dangerous (recommended), Slow Tongue (highly recommended)
Jackie Neal – Down In Da Club (2004)
One of the things I love about southern soul is coming across the female singers. They’re the raunchiest and nastiest singers in that scene. Whereas the men tend to hit it out the park with storytelling, there’s the standard fare of club songs, cheating, being cheated on, their woman leaving sung either from the heart or with a comedic approach.
It works but when you find that female singer who can do this and get rowdy and bawdy? Amazing. Jackie Neal is a good example of all of that and Down In Da Club, her posthumous album following her murder that year, hits all the right buttons.
Standout Tracks: Freak Party (highly recommended), Hurt By Love, Work It In The Middle (highly recommend)
Peggy Scott-Adams – Hot & Sassy (2001)
Hot & Sassy was tied with Contagious as the Peggy Scott-Adams entry. She has to be on here because she’s one of those pioneers of truly no holds barred southern soul of the knee-slapping, drink-spilling variety. My mother listened to Peggy Scott-Adams so much that I’d actually gotten tired of southern soul in general but you don’t cut off Millie Jackson and Marvin Sease.
As for this album, it’s extremely sassy and has that bounce to it which is a standard of the genre. Actually, you know what? Here’s a freebie: Contagious is worth checking out as well. They’re not totally identical albums but you’ll definitely enjoy it if you enjoyed Hot & Sassy and vice versa. It’s all down to the consistency of the songs on both albums.
Standout Tracks: Spousal Abuse, Pam, Girls Don’t Like Cheap Guys
Marvin Sease – The Housekeeper (1993)
It’s going down now! Marvin Sease is a talented singer—as are all of the singers on this list—who has this musical persona of just the most lowdown man in town, Mr. Jody.
It’s not the milkman or mailman who visits the house while the husband is at work, it’s this guy. The guy that no one knows what it is that he does but he’s always dressed, doused in cologne, and smiling as he walks through the door.
If it’s not at the house, Mr. Jody is a motel lover. He’s got no shame. It was hard picking a Marvin Sease album to put on the list because he was so great at telling a bawdy story about cheating, being cheated on, or being kicked out. His “Candy Licker” hit was the perfect counter to Millie’s “Slow Tongue.”
As for this album, it’s stock of what you get from Sease starting in the late 80s until his death. The Housekeeper gives you a lot of raunchiness with that bounce. Of the albums on this list, this one has the best arrangement of tracks—which can hurt an album even if the songs are great separate of the others.
There are some great songs on this one, so let’s see if I can keep the standout tracks to three.
Standout Tracks: I Ate the Whole Thing (highly recommended), She Don’t Love You, I Wanna Do It With You, Teach Me, The Housekeeper (highly recommended)
Latimore – Back Atcha (2007)
Latimore is like the Ric Flair of southern soul. This guy has done this for decades with a strong degree of quality to his tunes. Now, 2007’s Back Atcha is an album I picked up while waiting at the bus station. When I finally gave it a listen a few days later, I enjoyed what I was hearing. This is some good stuff with most of the ten tracks really hitting it out the park.
This was the album that got me into checking out other Latimore albums. I always knew he was singer. He was someone DJs would always play either late on FM radio or throughout the day on static-heavy AM radio’s blues stations. In checking out his other albums and revisiting Back Atcha, you will appreciate his consistency.
Often when you get some of the 90s and beyond southern soul albums from artists who have been around a long time, you find that their older stuff is straight up blues and R&B. Latimore’s stuff is roughly the same as it ever was.
Standout Tracks: In The Midst of Making Love, My Give A Damn Gave Out (A Long Time Ago) (recommended), Honeymoon
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.