Soultracks article: What soul music can learn from country music

[tsull1]

Chris Rizik is one of my favorite writers on music. He does a great job here:

http://www.soultracks.com/cr-country

[smark21]

Excellent article, very on point.

[MIKEW-UK]

tsull, thanks so much for the post. Not only is the article spot on, the comments are quite remarkable as well and deserve reaching as wide an audience as possible.

Artists [[e.g. Will Downing) songwriters, musicians and the general soul music fans make some excellent comments and underscore the vacuum that exists in the soul music market. I urge you to read the comments , they will strike a chord with you. Ralph and I often discuss just how hard it is to get exposure on new material, and persist in our belief that there is still a large but silent audience out there that needs to be reactivated. Ralph, Russ and Teddie Morrow have released some great product on Teddie, and Larry Buford has put out some really excellent Motown- like material, but it is very difficult and frustrating getting exposure both through radio and DJs who are often not as open to new material as one would wish. Both Teddie and Larry focus primarily on the song first and foremost, the lyrics, the message and the rhythm are the foundations of what they do.

Teddie Morrow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXTcuY8JVCw

Larry Buford http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dFWpd0UVRQ

[ralpht]

Good post, Mike. I must admit that it gets somewhat discouraging to spend time writing and producing music these days only to be ignored for the most part. Regarding Teddie Morrow: I'm getting ready to start releasing quite a few of Teddies songs over the next several months. Material that I feel is very strong. We shall see........

[soulster]

The one problem is that most of today's country is aimed at the female audience. There really isn't anything for the guys except rock and hip-hop. You'll always get the females, but make R&B appealing to both men and women and you'll have a winner. I'm not talking about something like The Roots that only have limited appeal.

[splanky]

I liked the article and the breakdown of the lyrics in the Drake song . Though I definitely
concur about how difficult it can be for some of to relate to so much of what is being called music today, the fact is most people have no problem with it at all. Or, if they do they don't
openly admit to it. I know guys my age [[50+) who listen to tons of the most ignorant stuff I've ever heard all day long and for the life of me I don't know why or even how they do it.
Grown men. Not bumping Al Green, The Temptations or even Ryan Shaw and Tre Williams
but Lil Wayne, The Game, 2 Chains and 50 pennies...I don't get it. I'd rather listen to Chinese
zither music than most of what plays on stations like Hot 97 today....