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Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music

  • 2005-2005
  • 1 season
  • Documentary, Music

Soul music has conquered the world in the last 50 years - growing from the raw, electric rhythms of the black underclass, it is now a billion dollar industry with R&B and hip-hop dominating the world's charts. It's been the soundtrack to some of the most extraordinary social, political and cultural shifts. And, together with the civil rights movement, it has challenged the white hegemony, helped breakdown segregation and encouraged the fight for racial equality.

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Episode 1

The Birth of Soul

The term rhythm and blues was coined by Billboard Magazine journalist Jerry Wexler after he was asked by his editor to find an alternative for the label 'race music'. In a previously unseen BBC interview with Ray Charles, he reveals how his innovations first brought soul to a wider audience. As the black sounds crossed the racial divide, rhythm and blues gave birth to rock 'n' roll - a far more sanitized version of the black sound which was seen to be "too uninhibited, too loose, and too sweaty." Black artists were squeezed out of the mainstream charts by white covers of their songs and Charles looked back to his roots for his inspiration and the creation of his own distinctive sound.

  • 2006 - Emmy - Arts Programming - Nominated
  • 2005 - RTS Television Award - Best Tape and Film Editing - Documentary and Factual - Nominated
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