Retro soul, sometimes written as retro-soul, is a post-modern and contemporary popular music genre that emerged years after the golden era of

soul music Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in African-American culture, African-American African-American neighborhood, communities throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps ...

. In style of singing, arrangement and recording techniques, this music attempts to offer new music in the tradition of soul music from the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s. This differs from

Contemporary R&B Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music Music genre, genre, originating from African Americans, African-American musicians in the 1980s that combines rhythm and blues with elements of Pop music, pop, Soul music, soul, funk, Hip-hop, ...

and

neo soul Neo soul (sometimes called progressive soul) is a genre of popular music. As a term, it was coined by music industry entrepreneur Kedar Massenburg during the late 1990s to market and describe a style of music that emerged from Soul music, soul ...

as it is intentionally produced in a vintage recording sound and style years after the original era.

Background

Retro Soul started in the late 1990s in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, with the vintage focused recordings from

Desco DESCO is an underwater diving equipment maker which was first organized in 1937 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as Diving Equipment and Salvage Co. It was founded by: * Max Eugene Nohl, a diver who lived in Milwaukee. In the early 1930s, he had national ...

(now

Daptone Records Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Ban ...

). Hip hop producers craved sampling material, and the small label presented vinyl recordings emulating the style of 1960s and 1970s soul and music. This music was initially released to represent that the music may be rare or lost recordings that were somehow unearthed, although they were technically brand new recordings. The popularity grew, finding the music being played frequently on US college radio. In addition, some of these recordings were used as material for sampling in

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

and electronic recordings.

Success

This music was brought to mainstream popularity in the second album material of artist

Amy Winehouse Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. With over 30 million records sold worldwide, she was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix ...

in 2006. Her

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

-winning ''

Back to Black ''Back to Black'' is the second and final studio album by English singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, released on 27 October 2006 by Island Records. Winehouse predominantly based the album on her tumultuous relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, ...

'' record production included vintage soul style, and featuring the rhythm section and horn players from

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul music, soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a Retro-soul, revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap D ...

. Subsequent releases by artists Sharon Jones,

Mayer Hawthorne Andrew Mayer Cohen (born February 2, 1979), better known by his stage name Mayer Hawthorne, is an American singer, producer, songwriter, arranger, audio engineer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles, California. Cohen performs and ...

Adrian Younge Adrian Younge (born May 7, 1978) is an American composer, arranger and music producer based in the Los Angeles area. Background Younge grew up in Fontana, California, United States. His father is a lawyer and Younge himself earned a Juris Doct ...

Raphael Saadiq Raphael Saadiq (; born Charles Ray Wiggins; May 14, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to prominence as a vocalist and bassist for the R&B band Tony! Toni! Toné!, which he formed with h ...

Lee Fields Elmer Lee Fields (born April 26, 1950) is an American soul singer, sometimes nicknamed "Little JB" for his physical and vocal resemblance with James Brown. He has recorded with Kool and the Gang, Hip Huggers, O. V. Wright, Darrell Banks, and ...

Shoshana Bean Shoshana E. Bean (born September 1, 1977) is an Americans, American actress, singer and songwriter. She has appeared in numerous Musical theatre, musicals, performing in major Off-Broadway and Broadway theatre, Broadway theatres, including in the ...

and Charles Bradley continued in this tradition.

Characteristics

The musical style is recognized by both the arrangements and instrumentation from classic soul music of the 1950s until the 1970s. It is largely non-electronic. The instrumentation includes

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

electric bass The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an electric but with a longer neck and scale leng ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

and

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

. The music is both instrumental and with vocals. The

repertoire Repertory or repertoire () is the list or set of works a person or company is accustomed to performing. Whether the English or French spelling is used has no bearing, but it was the French word, with an accent on the first e, , that first took ho ...

includes ballads, mid tempos and uptempos. The rhythms can include

Motown Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

, and

Sentimental ballad A sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner. Balla ...

Record labels

Desco Records DESCO is an underwater diving equipment maker which was first organized in 1937 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as Diving Equipment and Salvage Co. It was founded by: * Max Eugene Nohl, a diver who lived in Milwaukee. In the early 1930s, he had national ...

(Brooklyn, 1996–2000) * Founded by Phillip Lehman and

Bosco Mann Gabriel Roth (born August 17, 1974), also known as Bosco Mann among other aliases, is an American record producer, musician, and co-founder of Daptone Records. He is best known as the bandleader, bass player, primary songwriter, and Record produc ...

, the label was an early home to New York's artists. Lehman and Mann split ways to pursue different sounds in 2000.

(Brooklyn, 2004–present) * Bosco Mann would go on to found Daptone with Neal Sugarman. Daptone is one of the best-regarded soul revival labels and is known for

and Charles Bradley. Truth & Soul Records (Brooklyn, 2004–2016) * Following Desco, Lehman would run the short-lived label Soul Fire (1999–2003) before handing the studio over to Soul Fire musicians and producers

Leon Michels Leon Marcus Michels () (born 1982) is an American Record producer, music producer, Music executive, record executive, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known as the leader of the eclectic soul project El Michels Affair and co-founder of ...

and Jeff Silverman. Truth & Soul is best known for their Lee Fields & The Expressions releases and relationship with Daptone artists. Colemine Records (Ohio, 2007–present) * Founded by Terry Cole in the

Greater Cincinnati The Cincinnati metropolitan area (also known as the Cincinnati Tri-State area or Greater Cincinnati) is a metropolitan area with its core in Ohio and Kentucky. Its largest city is Cincinnati and includes surrounding counties in the U.S. states ...

area, Colemine has put out releases by artists from around the country including The Dip,

Durand Jones & The Indications Durand Jones & The Indications is an American contemporary R&B and soul group founded by the core songwriting trio of singer Durand Jones, singer/drummer Aaron Frazer, and guitarist Blake Rhein. Formed in 2012, the band came to prominence as par ...

, and

Black Pumas Black Pumas is an American psychedelic soul band based in Austin, Texas, led by singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/record producer, producer Adrian Quesada. The group received its first Grammy Award nomination in 2020 for Best New Artis ...

Stax Records Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in September 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. ...

(Memphis, 2007–present) * Legacy soul label which relaunched in 2007 as part of the

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists ha ...

group. Prominent contemporary artists include

Ben Harper Benjamin Charles Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music, and he is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, liv ...

and Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats.

Stones Throw Records Stones Throw Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. Under the direction of founder Peanut Butter Wolf, Stones Throw has released music ranging from hip hop to experimental psychedelic rock. ''LA Weekly'' ...

(Los Angeles, 1996–present) * Primary a hip hop label, Stones Throw has championed pop-leaning retro-soul artists like

Aloe Blacc Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III (born January 7, 1979), known professionally as Aloe Blacc (), is an American singer and rapper. He is known for his guest performance on Avicii's 2013 single "Wake Me Up (Avicii song), Wake Me Up", which peaked on ...

and

Now-Again Records Now-Again Records is a Los Angeles–based music imprint that specializes in reissues and compilations of funk, soul, and psychedelic rock from the 1960s to the 1980s. Founded in 2002 by Eothen "Egon" Alapatt as a subsidiary of Stones Throw Recor ...

(Los Angeles, 2002–present) * A former funk and soul reissue subsidiary of Stones Throw, Now-Again is best known for their regional and global funk and psych rock compilations. The label is home to acts including

The Whitefield Brothers The Whitefield Brothers are a German funk band. The band, which consists of brothers Jan and Max Weissenfeldt, was previously known as the "'Poets of Rhythm"' beginning in 1991. Under this name, they were signed to the Quannum Projects label after ...

, Heliocentrics, and

Breakestra Breakestra is a ten-piece funk "orchestra" from Los Angeles, California, formed by Miles Tackett in 1996. Tackett, also known as "Musicman", records, composes, plays bass, upright cello, guitar, keyboards and drums. He also sings along with th ...

. Big Crown Records (Brooklyn, 2016–present) * is a Brooklyn-based independent record label started by Leon Michels & Danny Akalepse. this is second record label Michels and Akalepse had built from the ground up.

References

{{Soul music 20th-century music genres Soul music genres 1990s in music 2000s in music 2010s in music 2020s in music