Southern Soul

Southern soul - the contemporary version at any rate - strikes me as being a rather under-rated music genre. Unlike Northern soul, which has a hard core of UK based fans, it is little known outside of its local fan base, centred around Jackson, Mississippi. Some of its stars, such as Peggy Scott-Adams, whose song Bill is a southern soul classic, Shirley Brown and Willie Clayton, have been around for decades and have sold plenty of records in their time, but are neglected not only in the UK but closer to home too. Driving through Mississippi you will hear plenty of southern soul on local black radio stations. But by the time you get to Memphis or New Orleans it's disappeared. You can find stations playing blues or R and B, but the distinctive southern soul style seems to thrive in a very limited area.

I remember seeing Bobby Rush playing to a predominantly black audience in Memphis a few years ago and I was blown away. He was rude, over the top, surrounded by sexy black girls shaking their booty and was absolutely outrageous. The audience loved him and so did I. Yet when he played at the Barbican a couple of years back a sort of shocked embarrassment spread throughout the audience. They clearly weren't prepared for the sort of vulgar showmanship that Bobby employs when performing on the chitlin' circuit, and Bobby wasn't ready for the much more reserved UK audience.

Among the southern soul greats of the past are stars such as Johnny Taylor, Little Milton and O V Wright, while B B King retains his Mississippi roots and others like Latimore, Denise LaSalle and Syl Johnson still show their southern heritage. But there are a whole range of newer soul men and women who I have heard but never seen, such as Carl Sims, Marvin Sease, Mel Waiters and the intriguingly named Poonanny. And I would place Toni Green (pictured), who wowed the crowd at Porretta this year, in the southern soul category. Will the southern soul scene ever emerge from obscurity? Doubtful, but it's well worth a listen in my opinion.