Joe Henry – New soul
ND: What do you think accounts for all of the renewed interest in soul music, in Mavis and Solomon Burke, Al Green, and Motown session band the Funk Brothers, in Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and all of the rest?
JH: For one thing, I think there is a void of song-oriented material, outside of a very small camp. And I think it’s a cycle, where people become aware of that, that there’s been a kind of beautiful house erected above them but there’s no floor. I think it happened in the late ’70s, for example, when the whole punk movement happened and people were looking for someone really to speak. And I don’t mean just in a political way, but to come to the table with a point of view.
I think, the R&B market being what it is now, people make the mistake of thinking that’s what soul turned into. It has kind of taken over for soul in a certain way, in terms of how the grand market was concerned, but it’s not the same animal. And it’s certainly, for the most part, not song-oriented. So now when people hear music again that’s driven by a voice and a song, they’re invigorated by it.
I mean, people respond today, still, to a great Aretha Franklin record. And not just because of nostalgia. They respond because it’s a motherfucker.
ND: You see today’s R&B as something apart from the soul tradition?
JH: Well, I think the influence of soul on contemporary R&B is unmistakable and anybody can see it. But it’s not what soul became, you know? In the same way that you can see how rock ‘n’ roll had everything to do with the blues, but rock ‘n’ roll is not what the blues became. It sprung from it, like a mushroom in the yard, but it’s not the same thing.
ND: So what are the differences you hear between the soul tradition and contemporary R&B?
JH: There’s an attitude that classic soul music shares with R&B. But, sonically, the way it’s constructed, the song form is not the same. Classic soul, as far as song form is concerned, has a lot more to do with rural country music, for instance, that it does with contemporary R&B. Contemporary R&B tends to be very static, very linear, sometimes to great effect, but it’s not constructed in the way that we’d associate with classic songwriting. It’s almost more collage in a way, more impressionistic and less narrative.
But at the same time, I think the attitude is similar….Classic soul is the amalgam of gospel, blues and country music; that is what those three organic sounds — and by organic I mean unique unto themselves, like primary colors — it’s what those have funneled into. My wife, for instance, grew up in Detroit, and what she heard as soul music was the urbanity of Motown. But when she started hearing southern soul, which is a lot of what I heard growing up, she was stunned to hear how much it sounded to her like country music. And I think classic soul is driven by an impulse similar to what drove the great country artists in a way. And I think that impulse is part of what Curtis Mayfield was doing as a social voice. And not in a finger-pointing way all the time, but still socially conscious.
ND: By socially conscious soul, you mean that even when a singer is talking, ostensibly, about their own troubles, it’s presented in such a way that it reaches out to a broader world than just a personal one?
JH: It references a broader world. I don’t know how conscious a decision that is, but I think it’s absolutely true. Even in a love ballad, there’s a visceral connection to contemporary life, to what’s going on in the real world, that reaches further than the bedroom.
ND: Let me run something by you. Ralph Ellison said the blues was all about fingering the inevitably jagged grain of our existence, finding a voice to express that feeling, and then sort of celebrating that we’ve survived the hard times. Still, the blues never goes away, in this way of thinking of it. It’s always there to be faced again tomorrow and the next day. And you face it alone.
In his book A Change Is Gonna Come: Race, Music And The Soul Of America, Craig Werner builds on Ellison’s idea to describe what he terms the gospel impulse. The gospel impulse starts at the same place as the blues — it still faces and expresses the pain and limitations of this world — but it also believes that in finding a connection to something larger than ourselves, human beings can, working together, change the world.
JH: I think those guys are on to something there! If you want to get analytical about it —
ND: I do!
JH: What you describe are different responses to the same impulse. I mean, the blues think “I’ve got to get through it alone,” but — and [Ellison and Werner] beautifully describe this difference — the gospel impulse is driven by the same kind of earthly passion, but you’re looking outside yourself instead of only looking inward. And maybe soul music on its own comes from the same [gospel] impulse but, instead of looking within or to a higher power, you look to that person next to you, to love.