News & Updates — soul!

Despite the working name of "Joe Cuba", the conguero Gilberto Calderon was actually a Nuyorican who grew up in Spanish Harlem. Since the first album in 1962 and into the '70s, the Joe Cuba Sextet were a very important and influential band on the newer generation of Latino musicians. With the two-tongued vocal duo of Cheo Feliciano (singing in Español) and Jimmy Sabater (singing in English) they scored a bunch of smash hits and helped fuel the boogaloo craze of the mid-'60s, fusing the soul music influence with Afro-Cuban rhythms. The group's albums contained burning hot descargas, jumping boogaloos and...

Classically-trained keyboardist Bernie Worrell has his place established as a major innovator in the Funk with Parliament-Funkadelic, with whom he played from about 1970 into the early '80s, and contributing to projects of other members of the mob. He brought the Bach to the Funk. He spent the '80s as a member of the Talking Heads and beyond that found an incredible amount of creative work with superproducer Bill Laswell. In his later years he was a staple on the jamband scene with Les Claypool, Govt Mule and others. A musical prodigy from New Jersey, he was playing piano by...

The recently-deceased Clyde Stubblefield, along with Jabo Starks, was one of the drummers in the James Brown band from '65-'70, powering "Cold Sweat", "Ain't It Funky Now", "Say It Loud - I'm Black & I'm Proud", "There Was A Time", "Sex Machine", "I Got The Feelin", "Mother Popcorn", "Get Up Get Into It Get Involved", Bobby Byrd's "If You Don't Work, You Can't Eat", Marva Whitney's "It's My Thing", Vicki Anderson's "Message From The Soul Sisters" and many more. "Starks was the Beatles to Clyde's Stones. A clean shuffle drummer to Clyde's free-jazz left hand"--Questlove Of course, it's his drums...

Best known as a producer of sample-ready '60s records of unique vision, David Axelrod held many chairs in his career, from drummer to composer, A&R man and especially as a recording engineer, arranger and producer. In the late '60s and '70s he created several personal statements with his drum-heavy engineering, polished arrangements, creative use of strings, funky beats and eco-oriented themes. A longtime favorite of hip-hop samplers, his music was a groovy fusion of jazz, rock and soul. His sound and style is unmistakable to the ears. The son of a union activist, he grew up in Los Angeles and...

The original hippy, the mystical eden ahbez wrote a tune called "Nature Boy" and by chance was able to hand it to Nat King Cole who turned it into a mega-hit in 1948. He looked like a hippy long before it was a thing and lived outdoors in Los Angeles. He lived under the "L" of the Hollywood sign and held a job as a piano player in a raw foods store. He was a vegetarian, straight edge and an anti-vaxer and wore a white robe. This lifestyle inspired "Nature Boy", and after the hit by Cole, ahbez became an...