What is the Greatest Soul Music City?

[abfan]

You know we must just be itchin' for a fight with this one, but here we go

Read more: SoulTracks Poll: What is the Greatest Soul Music City? |

http://www.soultracks.com/soul-city Here r u choices

Amsterdam
Atlanta
Chicago
Cleveland/Dayton
DC / Baltimore
Dallas
Detroit
London
Los Angeles
Memphis
Minneapolis
New York
Paris
Philadelphia

[Kamasu_Jr]

This isn't SoulTracks. It does not seem right to lift something they've posted on their site for members and use it here?
I'm just asking.
Or is the intent to get SDF members to click over to SoulTracks and answer the question there?

[roger]

Interesting selection of cities over there on Soultracks.

Although I live in London I can't think that anyone seriously thinks it would rate as #1 .. and as for Amsterdam and Paris .. I can't even think why they are included .. strange choices indeed.

Personally I think it varies depending upon which era we are talking about. Overall I think I would go for Chicago, but for much of the sixties and even in the early seventies Detroit had the edge.

Roger

[abfan]

Kamasu_Jr No im a member of that site aswel.I just bought the link over here for SDF to enjoy.It's no spam or anything.. lighten up my friend

[pshark]

I'll play along.
Chicago is my choice

[phil]

I'd say Chicago, Detroit and Memphis.

[robb_k]

2631
I think it would be Chicago, overall. But for 1962-1967, I'd pick Detroit.

[arrr&bee]

Anyone ever hear of[stax records]?? Memphis hands down!!

[theboyfromxtown]

Hey Roger...not so fast my friend. London has Abbey Road and the PWL Studios.

On second thoughts...DETROIT

[imnokid]

No mention of New Orleans?!?!?!?!!

[tamla617]

is this about making music or soul club scene?

[soulster]

I vote for ALL of them!

...Well I don't know anything about Amsterdam...and I don't think London qualifies.

[theboyfromxtown]

I vote for ALL of them!

...Well I don't know anything about Amsterdam...and I don't think London qualifies.

Soulster

But London has tried...!!

LOL

[marv2]

is this about making music or soul club scene?

That's the question that I have. Also are we talking back in time or today?

[tamla617]

if we're talking soul club scene then london will be up there,amsterdam,not sure about now,but the 80's it did and paris did too but with an african slant manu dibango type stuff.unless you've been to all of them there is no way you can do this chart.count the total of soul and funk clubs in each city? one of THE world venues is ronnie scotts and has got to count and so to has the jazz cafe in london,the escape,library and roxy in amsterdam,probably different names now.
out of the list i've been to
amsterdam
paris
los angelis
new york
and london [[obviously!)
and i cant pick a winner from those, let alone another 9

[mark speck]

You can make a case for almost all of them [[I don't know why my hometown, Cleveland, is up there...a couple of important acts have come from there, but not many), but Detroit pretty much put soul music on the map...so that's my choice.

Best,

Mark

[marv2]

Here is a great article on the Soul Music scene in Toronto:

http://music.aol.ca/article/Toronto-Soul-One-City-Under-A-Groove/556/


Toronto Soul: One City Under A Groove

A dozen years ago, DJ Shadow posed the musical question: “What does your soul look like?” Well, Toronto’s soul looks a lot like the crowd getting down at LAL’s CD release party in Queen West hipster club Wrongbar. They are Asian, black, white, gay and straight—the same mix you’ll find at most of the city’s increasingly popular soul-oriented events. LAL’s lead singer Rosina Kazi tells me these are basically the same people they’ve played for since they started ten years ago; there are just more of them.

Everyone has assembled here to celebrate the band’s unique sound, one that could only have come from Toronto. Electronically processed South Asian percussion morphs into bossa nova patterns then dissolves into washes of warm noise. The grooves are slow yet engaging, soothing yet challenging and at the center lie Kazi’s delicate yet tough vocals. The lush, abstract music of LAL’s third album, Deportation, is the sound of cultural eclecticism fully realized into a truly soulful fusion. The same could be said of Toronto’s contemporary soul scene.

LAL is part of a dynamic wave of soul-based releases coming out of Toronto that also includes hip-hop-Afro-folk chanteuse Zaki Ibrahim and Ivana Santilli, a veteran whose new disc sports a glossy early-80s pop-funk sound. Despite the diversity, there’s only one or two degrees of separation between anyone dispensing soulful sounds in Toronto.

To understand why these very different artists can all be considered soul artists means looking at Toronto itself.


On one hand, Toronto is the largest city in Canada, a major stop on the national touring circuit, and the center of the Canadian music business from which emanates much of English Canada’s mass culture.

On the other, Toronto is a globally attuned city with 49 percent of its population born outside of Canada. At its best, Toronto is a hub of global interchange between established residents, new arrivals and related points of call. In this sense, Toronto’s cultural stew relates just as much to what’s happening in other multicultural metropolises like New York, London and Paris.


The roots of today’s Toronto soul date back about 20 years. Toronto had always been a northern outpost on the US R&B and jazz circuits. In the ‘60s, American draft dodgers combined with newly arrived Jamaican immigrants to create a lively club scene. Over several decades, other Caribbean and African influences have mixed into Toronto’s demographics, broadening the possibilities of black music. In the early ‘90s, the UK “Acid Jazz” movement proved a natural fit for Toronto, combining soul, jazz, Afro-Latin, and club-oriented sounds. It became a catch-all term for the diverse expressions of soul taking place in the city at that time.

One of the first bands to emerge from the acid jazz scene was Bass is Base, which featured a trumpet player and keyboardist named Ivana Santilli. She fondly recalls the musical scene from which the band drew: “It went from black soul music from Britain in the late 80s—that was a big influence here—to Afrobeat and drum’n’bass. Hip-hop mixed into it very much. It seemed like every group had a DJ.” But despite two hit singles and a Juno win, their label, A&M Records, could not sustain their momentum.


Santilli went solo in the late-90s and has since built up enormous respect for her artistry. With third album TO:NY dropping next month, she has made it a priority to focus her diversity into an accessible whole. “My influences are largely pop from the late-70s, early-80s. At a certain point, there’s a formula, but it’s based on incredible quality. I decided to be clearer about the type of influence I was grabbing.”


With such an overt focus on pop, one would think she’d be tailor-made for a major. But she’s quite happy with her indie label, Do Right. “The label just gravitated toward the record and didn’t tell me what to do. It was incredible. [[Label head) John Kong has always pretty much understood my projects over the years, he’s a DJ and he understands how many avenues there are for different kinds of music.”

Speaking from experience, she describes why majors have been hesitant to get involved with soul music in Canada. “I can’t blame any of the major labels at all. There’s so much money involved and so many people’s jobs at stake. They just can’t take that kind of risk.”

Toronto’s major labels are proportionately smaller than their US counterparts due to the smaller scale of operations in Canada. As a result, these branch offices are more conservative in their decisions. Traditional industry thinking—an industry overwhelming staffed by white rock fans—says that since Canada’s black population is smaller than the USA and concentrated in two or three major cities, soul music is a tough sell.


Zaki Ibrahim has achieved notoriety in Toronto reasonably quickly, aided by her label District Six, named for a multiracial district in her previous home of Cape Town. After protracted negotiations, she signed with Sony and is trying to define the relationship which has tripped up so many artists. “If there’s going to be involvement by the majors it’s got to be a partnership kind of thing, perhaps where majors act as investors. There are certain things indies can do that majors can’t, and vice-versa. For me specifically, it took over a year to figure out what the relationship is going to be and it’s still a work in progress.”

Ibrahim’s new EP, Eclectica [[Visions In Purple) is the first fruit of the partnership and was mostly produced by Chin Injeti, Santilli’s former bandmate in Bass is Base. Ibrahim’s got a hell of a voice, with inevitable comparisons to Sade in timbre, though boasting a much higher energy level. She bounces around from pre-golden-age hip-hop to North African drum patterns to thick electronics. Even with the self-conscious album title, the seven-track EP is cohesive like an Erykah Badu album, albeit on a very different level. This might be the appeal for Sony after all—talent supported by an active, underground fan base is increasingly difficult for a major label to cultivate on their own.

LAL, however, will never be on a major. Their material is far too political, and from a major label’s point of view, too esoteric. Deportation takes on subjects like identity, loneliness and disenfranchisement faced by countless new Canadians—which, as noted, is nearly half of Toronto’s population. Their music is globally aware but not a patchwork of ethnic influences.


“Soul for me also includes reggae, house and techno ‘cause these are all forms that came out of the United States at some point,” says Kazi. “Our definition of soul is much broader. We’re still really influenced by African-American music and also by the UK interpretation of that soul which is quite different. But we’ve got the West Indian, African and Asian contacts as well.”


LAL’s producer/electronics player Nick Murray, who also worked with Ibrahim on her new disc, is quick to add a dose of reality to Toronto’s much vaunted diversity. “These are all beautiful utopian multicultural ideas we’re talking about but it doesn’t happen as often as it should in this country. It’s because of the lack of infrastructure—capital isn’t directed at people trying to do something new.”

Indie soul, fostered by Do Right and LAL’s label PTR, exists by default. “Soul music hasn’t had a chance to develop in this country” Murray continues. “There really isn’t a developmental indie-soul scene in this country because there’s no real place for it to grow into”.


Without the support of major labels, getting radio play across the country is extremely difficult. Even Toronto’s FLOW 93.5, Canada’s only black-owned radio station which won its license with a promise of a soulful cultural mix on it airwaves, has not embraced any of these three artists. “FLOW doesn’t help,” Murray states, “it’s [beholden] to advertising money.”


Toronto’s best soul-oriented artists are stunning individual talents that depend on a strong, grassroots network—the same conditions that have made the city’s indie rock scene so successful. But further success will prove challenging.

“We have certain liberties being Canadians, but we just don’t have the avenues,” says Santilli, noting the inherent difficulty in marketing our multicultural hybrids domestically and abroad. “We’re supposed to be influenced by music of the US, Europe, Africa, and the West Indies and have it become our own little stew. That’s Canadian music at its best. But it’s complicated for people in the United States to understand what we’ve just done to it.”

[theboyfromxtown]

Interesting Marv2 and thank you for posting.

I don't feel Canada gets its fair share of exposure in the UK. However, jobeterob will be pleased to learn they do in France where Canadians like Roch Voisin and Mylene Farmer were/are huge selling artists. Mylene Farmer is on the same level as Madonna in France...incredibly popular and for over 20 years from what I can recall.

[pshark]

STAX is a great label but CHESS has a longer history

[GeeTee(HPK)]

Being from Chicago, I wouldn't say that we totally ruled, but we did have our fair share of great music coming out of our city,during it's "hey day." :) I am thankful that we made the list at # 3. :)

So many cities have contributed to producing some great music,so I'm not going to say one city dominates over the other.

[topdiva1]

DETROIT and MEMPHIS.

[arrr&bee]

If we're talking soul music in it's truest form then it's gotta be memphis[otis redding-sam an dave-carla thomas-booker t].

[marv2]

It might have been easier for me to decide if he had asked what "Region" was the greatest in terms of producing Soul Music. HINT: THE GREAT LAKES REGION!!!!!

[tom_moulton]

What I call pure Soul comes from Memphis. Other cities had their moments. The output that came out of that city was just amazing.

[arrr&bee]

what i call pure soul comes from memphis. Other cities had their moments. The output that came out of that city was just amazing.tell em tom,soul music has a rareness to it that gives it an edge and memphis had it on lockdown.

[arrr&bee]

tell em tom,soul music has a rareness to it that gives it an edge and memphis had it on lockdown.i meant to say-a rawness.

[KevLo]

Hi this is Kev-Lo

Although I'm From New York and it had a great input in Soul music, But I love the music out of Chicago the best

[marv2]

It's over! Detroit has been declared the Greatest Soul City:

http://www.soultracks.com/soul-city

[mr soul]

It's over! Detroit has been declared the Greatest Soul City:

Aw shucks & I thought Amsterdam was a shoe in...it just shows you never can tell...if you're talking the classic period 50's 60's & 70's, for me it's a no brainer the windy city blows the competition away any day.

[mikey]

NYC output was prodigious.Think about it.NYC put out great great stuff.