Bobby Bland on Soul:
"Soul music, I think it's just a feeling that you have and, I guess because we are black people. I guess you could call, Country & Western Soul, if you were speaking of feeling. So I think that's what soul music is. It's how you feel and how you deliver and get your point across with the lyric."
Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers Reminisces about the Beatles versions of a couple of Isley Brothers hits.
Ron Isley: "The Beatles was discovered during "Shout" in Liverpool. That was the main song that they attracted, people in to see them and "Shout" and "Twist and Shout." In fact, I mean, you would've thought they were the white Isley brothers when they started. And we joke about that in meeting them in '64, you know, and say, Hey man, you guys, they was dressing like whatever we would wear as dress. That's the way they were dressed and they were doing like twist and shout and shout, and it just exploded."
Originally, a member of the Chicago Vocal Group, The Impressions. Jerry Butler left the group soon after they had their first big hit that Jerry wrote, called "For Your Precious Love."
Jerry Butler: "Naturally, when I left the impressions, I was afraid. Afraid because as I said before, I never really intended to have an entertainment career. And when I started, I started with a group and there were always five guys. You know, I had four other guys to kinda lean on. And I woke up one day and I was standing out there by myself and there was nobody to blame. If it went bad and I got all the applause, if it did good.
Ben E. King: "I think my mother, according to my mother, I started singing somewhere around the age of seven, in church, of course. My parents moved to New York. When I was around about nine or 10, moved the whole family to New York and I just continued after that, basically singing in church still. And then later on, my father was a restaurateur and he had restaurants on eighth Avenue and he had one on Lennox Avenue. And, uh, I found groups that way."
Be here next time for the next installment of the Harlem Hit Parade Tapes. Oh.
