The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience since the 1960s

Refiguring American Music

by Emily J. Lordi

In The Meaning of Soul, Emily J. Lordi proposes a new understanding of this famously elusive concept. In the 1960s, Lordi argues, soul came to signify a cultural belief in black resilience, which was enacted through musical practices—inventive cover versions, falsetto vocals, ad-libs, and false endings. Through these soul techniques, artists such as Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Minnie Riperton performed virtuosic survivorship and thus helped to galvanize black communities in an era of peril and promise. Their soul legacies were later reanimated by such stars as Prince, Solange Knowles, and Flying Lotus. Breaking with prior understandings of soul as a vague masculinist political formation tethered to the Black Power movement, Lordi offers a vision of soul that foregrounds the intricacies of musical craft, the complex personal and social meanings of the music, the dynamic movement of soul across time, and the leading role played by black women in this musical-intellectual tradition.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, African American

224 pages, Paperback

Published August 14, 2020

About the author

Emily J. Lordi is Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University and the author of Black Resonance and Donny Hathaway Live.

Reviews

[J. Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging and fun revision of theories of soul music. Lordi argues for soul as a logic of collective resilience built from an openness and vulnerability about the hardships of Black life. She highlights especially the role of Black women and Black queer folks and grounds her analysis in the literal sounds and lyrics of songs from a wide array of artists including Aretha, Minnie Riperton, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, and more contemporary artists like Solange and Janelle Monae. The closing discussion of Lordi's theory of Afropresentism was also compelling. This is a short and dense book and at times the close-readings of songs were a bit overpacked for me but overall a good read. I look forward to incorporating this in future work.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating new book traces the history and contours of soul, and soul music — similar, but not synonymous — over the past six decades. Concise but dense at 217 pages, The Meaning of Soul isn't a history of soul per se, but rather an exploration what it is that "soul" connotes. Understanding soul, she argues, means appreciating its diversity, and in particular the ways in which Black women have been at soul's forefront from the beginning.

I reviewed The Meaning of Soul for The Current.

[Shahela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book... “If we are the future that past artists and activists dreamed of, how much freer were we all supposed to be?” Lordi takes us on a journey from the 50s and 60s on the strength and resilience black artists inspired through soul. This book would be a great addition to a music semester in college focused on race, ethnicity, and culture/music. Academic and insightful in writing but can also be read for fun if you’re passionate about music/activism.

[composeurself · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging and well-supported examination of sonic, individual, and collective resilience in soul and its sounds. I listened as I read.

[leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

lovely perfect wonderful in every way! the case studies done by song are so careful and rich, impossible not to fall in love with every chapter

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elegantly written and thematically rich analysis of the meanings of soul (and post-soul) as a cultural, theoretical, and political conception of Blackness. The many readings of specific soul musicians are wonderful.

[Fish on Earth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my master's thesis... very interesting. Would have enjoyed more if my academic validation would not be inherently linked to the reading experience 🥲

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting thoughts on the meaning of various elements of soul music. A lot of the academic verbiage went over my head, but the rest was meaningful and engaging to me.