Sweet Soul Music 1965

 I heard the call that someone was getting impatient for the next installment soooo...quite a dizzying lineup here. The Blues is nearly absent, only a lone Jimmy McCracklin tune and the  blue soul of Southern Soul singers like Joe Tex, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Little Milton and Lee Dorsey retain any echos. The strong rhythmic instrumental tradition of R&B is carried on by Booker T & The MG's, Jr Walker and The All Stars and the jazz crossover from Ramsey Lewis. Motown and Philly with some help from Chicago are beginning to flex the hit making muscles that will soon have them dominating black radio and pushing southern soul gradually into the background. Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Impressions, The Miracles, The Four Tops...Fontella Bass bursts on the scene burning brightly but is soon to be lost in the giant shadow that Aretha will cast. James Brown has begun his break from everyone with the loud proclamation that Papa Has a Brand New Bag! New Orleans is still heard from in both Lee Dorsey's second run on the charts and the novelty song of the year, which was a Mardi Gras tune by a girl group called the Dixie Cups. (Of course most of America had no idea it was an Mardi Gras Indian chant and took it as a teen age nursery rhyme) Add in the usual sprinkle of good one hit wonders and 1965 is a fine selection.