All Music Guide to Soul: The Definitive Guide to R&B and Soul Reviews
All Music Guide to Soul: The Definitive Guide to R&B and Soul
This comprehensive guide is a must-have for the legions of fans of the perennially popular music known as rhythm and blues. The latest in the definitive All Music Guide series, All Music Guide to Soul offers entertaining and informative reviews that lead readers to the best recordings by their favorite artists and help them find new music to explore. Informative biographies, essays, and “music maps” trace soul’s growth from its roots in blues and gospel and its flowering in Memphis and Motown to its many branches today. Complete discographies note bootlegs, important out-of-print albums, and import-only releases.
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Only one thing needs to be said here-there have been some tremendous innovations in R&B since this book was written (John Legend for example arrived just a year too late for a mention in this book)but it is wonderful to see R&B get the press that All Music Guide as given to classical,rock,blues and jazz music over the years.This covers everything from the early jump blues R&B of the late 1940′s all the way up to the first CD’s by Alicia Keyes,Jill Scott and Justin Timberlate-treating all genres with a great degree of respect.Even disco-albums by the genre’s greatest innovators Chic,Giorgio Moroder,Donna Summer and Sylvester all get glowing,respectful reviews that showcase their gigantic musical influence.By explainging contemporary R&B in context with more classic material this volume has actually helped me great to flush out my collection of newer music such as the final album by Aaliyah.There are a few flaws in this volume-the print is small yes but forgivable.But as with all All Music Guide volumes,to save space some albums are listed but considered too insignificant to merrit a review so are presented only as an item in an artists discography.The other flaw is the critics-Stephan Thomas Erlwhine seems to have more rock expertise and refers to P-Funk,the most anti disco of the classic funk bands as,you got it:a disco funk group.Ron Wynn obviously has far more knowledge and experience with R&B,soul,funk and other styles.Those little foibles aside the All Music Guide to R&B presents a genuinely non biased primer to those who want to start collecting or expand there R&B collection.It should also be noted that some older albums in here,even if they got excellent reviews and come highly recommended are out of print will take some time to locate in used record stores (some of Heatwave’s and Motown’s late 70′s material for example)but this book often points that out and trust me:in all these cases it’s well worth the search.
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|Tons of useful information but the print is way too small!,
I had never owned an All Music Guide and I have been told by fellow music collectors that they are really terrific. Seeing that All Music had just recently published their new guide to R & B and Soul I decided to give it a try. I must say I was impressed by the extensive detail given to each entry in this book. You would not only learn the history of an artist or group, but in many cases you got an update as to what the artist was doing nowadays. This was impressive and distinguishes this book from others I have seen on the market. The book covers a wide array of genres including rhythm and blues, soul, funk, disco and one of my personal favorites doo wop. There is one major problem however. The print is so small that I got a headache trying to read it. Try as a might I just could not get past this major flaw. I wound up sending it back. Too bad. I suspect anyone over the age of 40 will encounter the same problem. It seems to me that it would have been much wiser to divide this into 2 volumes with print that you could actually read. I would have gladly paid the difference.
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|The Bible of Soul Music,
This is one of the great reference guides on Soul Music covering the great to the obscure. I wish the print was a little larger but I understand that space is an issue. It’s a great book for students, teachers, researchers, and aficionados.
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