Artist	Song
The Soul Stirrers	Sleep On (1945)
Louis Jordan	Caldonia (1945)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe	Singing In My Soul (1945)
Andy Kirk & His Clouds Of Joy with The Jubilaires	I Know (1946)
Mahalia Jackson	Dig A Little Deeper (1947)
The Pilgrim Travellers	Standing On The Highway (1948)
The Orioles	It's Too Soon To Know (1948)
The Ravens	Send For Me If You Need Me (1948)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Marie Knight	Up Above My Head (I Hear Music In The Air) (1948)
Ruth Brown	So Long (1949)
The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi	In The Wilderness (1950)
The Royal Sons Quintet	So God Can Use Me (1951)
The Dominos	Do Something For Me (1951)
The Dominos	That's What You're Doing To Me (1951)
The Clovers	Don't You Know I Love You So (1951)
The "5" Royales	Give Me One More Chance (1951)
The "5" Royales	Baby Don't Do It (!952)
The Orioles	Gettin' Tired Tired Tired (1952)
Mahalia Jackson	He's My Light (1952)
The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi	Will Jesus Be Waiting? (1952)
Lloyd Price	Tell Me, Pretty Baby (1953)
Faye Adams	Shake A Hand (1953)
Ray Charles	Don't You Know (1953)
The Midnighters	Get It (1953)
Alex Bradford	Too Close To Heaven (1953)
Lavern Baker	Soul On Fire (1953)
Lowell Fulson	Reconsider Baby (1954)
The Midnighters	Don't Say Your Last Goodbye (1954)

Comment:

A lot of the CDs I compile seem to be attempts at challenging popular misconceptions or righting wrongs by hi-lighting the work and importance of undervalued artists, song-writers, etc. This mix was my attempt to prove (once again to one of my brothers) that Soul music did not spontaneously appear out of nowhere in the 1960s. It had - in the words of one of its greatest pioneers - been 'a long time coming' - and this CD endeavoured to show this fact by going back to the birth of Rhythm & Blues in the mid-1940's and demonstrating that the merging of Gospel and Blues styles which gave birth to Soul Music was a gradual process which can clearly be traced back to this time. The concept was quite simple - start off with a Gospel song (by the highly-influential Soul Stirrers) and an early Rhythm & Blues classic (by the man who pretty much invented the concept, Louis Jordan) and follow them with examples from both genres which gradually blur the dividing lines between them - Blues with increasing tinges of Gospel... Gospel with ever more elements of Blues. Among the unsung heroes (and heroines) of this story for me are the criminally-underrated Gospel songstress, Sister Rosetta Tharpe (whose guitar playing is said to have inspired Chuck Berry as much as her vocal style influenced Little Richard); The "5" Royales who made the switch from their Gospel roots as The Royal Sons Quintet to secular music quite seemlessly and led the way for so many of the Sixties Soul artists to do likewise; and The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi (so much better than that lot from Alabama in my humble opinion!) whose lead singer, Archie Brownlee foreshadowed the great Soul 'screamers' like Wilson Pickett and James Brown. Along the way there are notable milestones, such as the emergance of the great R&B vocal groups like The Orioles, bringing Gospel harmonies into the pop charts and songs like Ruth Brown's "So Long" or Lavern Baker's "Soul On Fire" which would both have sounded 'modern' ten years later. By the time we reach the final track on this particular CD - The Midnighters' "Don't Say Your Last Goodbye" - the integration of the Gospel sound into R&B is pretty much complete, setting the scene nicely for part two!

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