Progressive soul

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Progressive soul
Other names
  • Prog-soul
  • black prog
  • black rock
  • progressive R&B
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsLate 1960s – early 1970s, United States
Derivative forms
Other topics

Progressive soul (often shortened to prog-soul; also called black prog, black rock, and progressive R&B)

Motown, progressive rock, psychedelic soul, and jazz fusion
.

Progressive soul music can feature an eclectic range of influences, from both

African-American experience, left-wing politics, and bohemianism, sometimes employing thematic devices from Afrofuturism and science fiction
. Their lyrics, while challenging, can also be marked by irony and humor.

The original progressive soul movement peaked in the 1970s with the works of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others. Since the 1980s, both prominent American and British acts have recorded music in its tradition, including Prince, Peter Gabriel, Sade, Bilal, and Janelle Monáe. The neo soul wave of the late 1990s and early 2000s, featuring the Soulquarians collective, is considered a derivative development of the genre.

History

Origins in early R&B and rock

By the mid-1950s, rhythm and blues was transitioning from its blues and big band-based jazz origins toward the musical forms that would be known more broadly as rock music.[2][nb 2] This trend was expedited by the exposure of young white listeners and musicians to African-American music played by ambitious disc jockeys on radio stations in the Northern United States.[2] However, partly in response to jealousy among veteran performers and prejudice in general, recording acts in the early rock era generally gravitated toward either one of the three stylistic influences from which the genre had primarily originated – R&B, country, and pop.[3]

Hitsville U.S.A., Motown's former studio-headquarters and now museum, with photos of Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, and Stevie Wonder in the window display

In the mid-1960s, several new musical forms arose that diversified rock. Among them was the

mainstream culture with the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Concurrently, psychedelic rock utilized electronic innovations with a harder sound primarily intended to induce or enhance the listener's consciousness rather than for relaxation, dance, or analytical listening.[4]

In the late 1960s, the structural and stylistic boundaries of African-American music were pushed further by the

Eastern music.[6] As with folk rock earlier in the decade, jazz fusion was another emerging subform to concede rock influences in a parent genre that had otherwise been exclusive to a cultural elite.[4] These events inspired greater musical sophistication and diversity of influences, ambitious lyricism, and conceptual album-oriented approaches in black popular music, leading to the development of progressive soul.[7]

Development and characteristics

Wonder (shown in 1973) recorded a series of innovative prog-soul albums in the 1970s.

By the 1970s, many African-American recording artists primarily working in the

ethnomusicologist and University of Colorado Boulder music professor Jay Keister. However, he notes that the pursuit of individuality sometimes challenged the collective political values of the Black Arts Movement.[13] Himes categorizes the progressive soul movement as "left-wing" and "bohemian" in the sense of "any culture with a middle class to produce young people who are more interested in the unfettered exploration of intellectual, artistic, sexual and political possibilities than in the mainstream goals of wealth, power and conformity"; he adds that this subculture among African Americans grew in proportion to their emerging middle class.[14]

Many of the leading African-American musicians were riding the progressive wave at the same time as white musicians, but with one major difference. If the overall imperative of the time was that music must progress, for African Americans it was more specifically that "our music must progress."

— Jay Keister, "Black Prog: Soul, Funk, Intellect and the Progressive Side of Black Music of the 1970s"[13]

Among the prog-rock characteristics shared in black progressive music of this period were extended composition, diverse musical appropriation, and making music for the purpose of concentrated listening as opposed to dancing.

jams characterized by leitmotifs and his spoken interludes (known as "raps").[17]

Isaac Hayes (1973), another singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist in the genre

Progressive soul musicians also used a variety of non-traditional influences, much like the Beatles had in the 1960s.

toilet humor similar to the experimental rock musician Frank Zappa's recordings with The Mothers of Invention.[21]

The

Walk on By" is considered a classic prog-soul single.[25]

In discussing the exemplary prog-soul albums of this period, Himes names Hendrix's

Earth Wind & Fire's Head to the Sky (1973), and Wonder's Innervisions (1973).[9] Martin also cites albums from Wonder (Innervisions, along with 1972's Talking Book and 1976's Songs in the Key of Life) and War (The World Is a Ghetto, along with 1971's All Day Music and 1973's War Live), as well as the Isley Brothers (3 + 3 from 1973 and Harvest for the World from 1976).[26] The 1975 albums That's the Way of the World (by Earth, Wind & Fire) and Mothership Connection (by Parliament) are other notable releases, with the latter a concept album culminating Clinton's Afrofuturist musical aspirations.[27] Wonder's mid 1970s albums are also highlighted by The Times writer Dominic Maxwell as "prog soul of the highest order, pushing the form yet always heartfelt, ambitious and listenable", with Songs in the Key of Life regarded as a peak for its endless musical ideas and lavish yet energetic style.[28] Backus notes among the genre's many politically charged works to include the Temptations song "War" (1970), the LPs of Gil Scott-Heron, and the O'Jays' "Rich Get Richer" (from the 1975 album Survival).[29]

Mainstream success and decline

Maurice White, frontman for Earth, Wind & Fire, 1975

Sly Stone was "the first superstar" of progressive soul, according to

Crawdaddy! had proclaimed Stone "the founder of progressive soul".[31]

Also hugely popular, Wonder and Gaye's progressive soul albums sold millions of copies during the 1970s.

Grammy Awards and transforming his career.[13] Gaye's What's Going On eventually proved among the most acclaimed albums in history, and Earth, Wind & Fire's That's the Way of the World (with the help of its hit single "Shining Star") was among the most successful black-music records at the time, leading album sales for 1975 with more than 1.1 million copies.[33]

Progressive soul's name and rise in the mainstream were both reported in 1975 by Billboard and

Stereo Review's Phyl Garland, Earth, Wind & Fire was "the leading exponent of progressive soul" through the end of the decade.[16]

The P-Funk Mothership, preserved at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic collective achieved a corresponding success as a concert attraction, selling out large arenas and auditoriums while performing in sprawling fashion, with musicians dressed in eccentric costumes.

pimp).[37]

In February 1975, Parliament-Funkadelic played a co-billed show with

discotheques".[38] The original wave of progressive soul was "short-lived", however, with Himes noting its decline by the late 1970s.[39] In Mayfield's case, he withdrew from public life after a series of lawsuits and poorly-received disco albums.[40] Parliament-Funkadelic also fell into disarray with mismanagement of its various musical projects, drug abuse among many of its members, and Clinton's professional disputes with their record label, culminating in the end of the collective's original run by 1981.[41] Stone suffered a similar fate, as legal and drug issues interfered with his productivity and presence in the music industry throughout the late 1970s and 1980s.[31]

Revivals

Bilal, a progressive soul singer-songwriter, in 2008

During the 1980s, artists who made recordings in the genre included Prince,[42] Peter Gabriel,[43] Sade, JoBoxers, and Fine Young Cannibals.[44] The latter three groups are cited by Himes as spearheading the movement's rebirth in the UK, which other acts like Kane Gang and the Housemartins would join by 1988.[44] However, in a piece for The Washington Post the following year, he proclaimed that the original movement's expansion of R&B's "musical and lyrical boundaries" remained unrivalled.[40]

By 1990, younger American artists were renewing the progressive-soul tradition. These included Chris Thomas King, Terence Trent D'Arby, Lenny Kravitz, Tony! Toni! Toné!, and After 7.[9] More emerged as the decade ensued, including the British singers Seal and Des'ree, and Americans Meshell Ndegeocello and Joi.[45] Spin magazine's Tony Green credits the latter two artists with pioneering the prog-soul revival that would peak by the early 2000s.[46]

At the start of the 21st century, the leading artists of progressive soul were the Soulquarians, an experimental black-music collective active from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Often marketed under the term "neo soul", their members recorded collectively at New York's Electric Lady Studios and included D'Angelo, James Poyser, Q-Tip, J Dilla, Erykah Badu, and Raphael Saadiq (formerly of Tony! Toni! Toné!).[47] Himes, who cites Bilal, Jill Scott, and the Roots as a Philadelphia-based correlative within this collective, adds that they took "the progressive-soul tradition of Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Prince and [gave] it a hip-hop twist".[42] The commercial success of artists marketed as neo soul, such as Scott, Badu, and Maxwell, helped lend the genre credence as the modern manifestation of progressive soul in both mainstream and subcultural milieus through the 2000s.[48][nb 1]

Afrofuturist
works

While having debuted with a popular R&B single for a

bohemian chic that heavily influenced the neo-soul and progressive soul movements".[52]

Along with Bilal, prog-soul singer-songwriters in the 21st century have included Dwele, Anthony David,[53] and Janelle Monáe.[54] Monáe's work features Afrofuturist aesthetics and science fiction concepts, including narratives written around the android persona Cindi Mayweather, described by PopMatters critic Robert Loss as "a mechanical construction composed for the usefulness of others". Loss adds that her use of various genres, both individually and in combination with each other, "serves a progressive ideology" and acts as "a response to W. E. B. Du Bois' critical notion of 'double consciousness', wherein the African American is constantly aware of self and the self as seen by whites".[55] Saadiq's 2011 prog-soul album Stone Rollin' prominently utilizes the Mellotron, an old-fashioned keyboard most often played in progressive and psychedelic rock, and evoking what AllMusic's Andy Kellman describes as "diseased flutes and wheezing strings".[56] Alicia Keys performs in a similar form of soul as Monáe on the 2020 song "Truth Without Love" (from the album Alicia), described by Mojo magazine's James McNair as "astro-soul".[57] Writing in 2021, Gigwise critic Lucy Wynne remarks that progressive soul is "very on-trend at the moment", noting the Leon Bridges album Gold-Diggers Sound in particular.[58]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Both neo soul and alternative R&B have been used interchangeably with reference to progressive soul at the turn of the 21st century.[49]
  2. ^ The term "rock music" had gradually displaced "rock and roll" by the 1980s with the rise of serious critical study around the genre and a decline in stereotyping the music as being exclusively for teenage listeners.[2]

References

  1. ^ Keister, Sheinbaum & Smith 2019; Holsey 1978, p. 11; Ross 1999, p. 21.
  2. ^ a b c Politis 1983, p. 79.
  3. ^ Politis 1983, pp. 79–81.
  4. ^ a b c d Politis 1983, p. 81.
  5. ^ Martin 2015, p. 96; Backus 1976, p. vi.
  6. ^ Keister 2019, p. 6.
  7. ^ Politis 1983, p. 81; Martin 1998, p. 41; Hoard & Brackett 2004, p. 524.
  8. ^ Keister 2019, p. 20; Martin 1998, p. 41.
  9. ^ a b c Himes 1990.
  10. ^ Anon. 2010.
  11. ^ Hoard & Brackett 2004, p. 524.
  12. ^ McCann 2019; Keister 2019, p. 7.
  13. ^ a b c d e Keister 2019, p. 9.
  14. ^ Himes 2013.
  15. ^ a b Keister 2019, pp. 9–10.
  16. ^ a b Garland 1979, p. 76.
  17. ^ Planer n.d.
  18. ^ Martin 2015, p. 96.
  19. ^ Keister 2019, p. 10.
  20. ^ Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2001, p. 252.
  21. ^ Keister 2019, pp. 12, 16.
  22. ^ di Leonardo 2019, p. 35.
  23. ^ Warren 2012.
  24. ^ Hopkins 2020.
  25. ^ Boller 2016.
  26. ^ Martin 1998, pp. 41, 205, 216, 239, 244.
  27. ^ Strong & Griffin 2008, p. 365; Keister 2019, p. 16.
  28. ^ Kendall 2019.
  29. ^ Backus 1976, p. vi.
  30. ^ Ford 1975, p. 47.
  31. ^ a b Glickman 1992, p. 257.
  32. ^ Gulla 2008, p. 226.
  33. ^ Keister 2019, p. 10; Anon. 1975, p. 55.
  34. ^ Ford 1975, p. 47; Anon. 1975, p. 55.
  35. ^ Anon. 1975, p. 55.
  36. ^ Gulla 2008, pp. 225–6.
  37. ^ Keister 2019, p. 16.
  38. ^ Dove 1975, p. 16.
  39. ^ Himes 1990; Himes 1989.
  40. ^ a b Himes 1989.
  41. ^ Moskowitz 2015, p. 446.
  42. ^ a b Himes 2011.
  43. ^ Easlea 2018.
  44. ^ a b Himes 1988.
  45. ^ Himes 1994; Green 2002, p. 129.
  46. ^ Green 2002, p. 129.
  47. ^ Cochrane 2020.
  48. ^ rtmsholsey 2010.
  49. ^ Farley 2002, p. 54.
  50. ^ Bilal 2010.
  51. ^ Dacks 2010.
  52. ^ Campbell 2021.
  53. ^ Lindsey 2013.
  54. ^ Kot 2018.
  55. ^ Loss 2013.
  56. ^ Gourley 2012; Kellman n.d.
  57. ^ McNair 2020, p. 8.
  58. ^ Wynne 2021.

Bibliography

Further reading

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