BBC - Soul America (2020) Part 2 Say It Loud

Carleen Anderson narrates a three-part series telling the story of how soul music emerged from the world of gospel in the early 1960s to deliver an assertive, integrated vision of black America during the civil rights era, presided over by its own king and queen, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.

From the 17th century, slavery drove the economy of the American south for 200 years. Slavery was finally abolished in 1863, but its gospel tradition lived on. As the black American church grew in strength and popularity, so did its singers. A network of black performers and venues emerged known as the gospel highway and in 1950s- in living memory of the Emancipation Proclamation- saw the emergence of soul music's first generation of stars. Soul came from a higher place, but it would land in the carnal world of Rhythm and Blues. Ray Charles's What'd I Say crystallised soul, combining Saturday night R&B with Sunday morning call and response.

With contributions from Mavis Staples, Candi Staton, Duke Fakir, Martha Reeves, Mary Wilson, Otis Williams, The Holland Brothers, Clarence Carter, Al Bell, Steve Cropper and Spooner Oldham. Expert analysis from Mark Anthony Neal, Nelson George and Emily J Lordi.

Part 2 Say It Loud

In the late 60s and early 70s, black America went to war. Inequality, poverty and racism fanned the flames of radical black politics and a harder soul sound Isaac Hayes, James Brown and the Whitfield-and-Strong-era Temptations. It was the best of soul, it was the worst of times.

1967 was no summer of love for black America. The Detroit riot was one of 159 uprisings across America. When Martin Luther King was murdered the following year in America's other soul city, Memphis, a tipping point was reached. America burned while James Brown wrote Say It Loud, risking it all to speak out. Stax Records went from being a label built around an integrated house band to become a black-centric business spearheaded by Isaac Hayes's expansive, flamboyant soul symphonies.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, The Temptations tackled socially aware subjects like the Detroit riot and absent fathers, while Marvin Gaye conceived the epic What's Going On. This episode also looks at the revolution of black heroes in cinema, inaugurated by Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a film that led to the blaxploitation genre - a creative sideline for civil rights soul heroes like Isaac Hayes (Shaft) and Curtis Mayfield (Superfly). The film culminates with the Wattstax festival, 1972's black Woodstock - a truly redemptive and soulful image of the black inner city.

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