soul music

American  

noun

1. a fervent type of popular music developed in the late 1950s by Black Americans as a secularized form of gospel music, with rhythm-and-blues influences, and distinctive for its earthy expressiveness, variously plaintive or raucous vocals, and often passionate romanticism or sensuality.

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Etymology

Origin of soul music

An Americanism dating back to 1960–65

Example Sentences

One of the biggest, most illogical and satisfying developments of the past 75 years—artistically, culturally, historically, socially and financially—is the transmission of Old South plantation blues, from America to England and back again, through rock, pop and soul music.

From The Wall Street Journal

Considered among the best backing bands in soul music, the quartet Booker T & the MGs was the house band of influential Memphis label Stax Records and is best remembered for their 1962 track Green Onions.

From BBC

In September, the AI singer Xania Monet, whose genre is R&B and soul music, became the first virtual artist to enter the bestselling charts in the United States.

From Barron's

Especially because I was in jazz choir in high school and it kind of taught me more about soul music and the origins and how there’s so many synchronicities within other genres like gospel, and how R&B and all of them just tie into each other.

From Los Angeles Times

During a concert on the first evening of the festival, Aaron Cohen, a local scribe and author of books on Chicago-based jazz and soul music, told me to pay special attention to the drummer Makaya McCraven.

From The Wall Street Journal