Florida Soul

Alongside Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans, Macon, and Muscle Shoals, Florida has a rich soul music history – an important cultural legacy that has often gone unrecognized. Florida Soul celebrates great artists of the Sunshine State who have produced some of the most electric, emotive soul music America has ever heard.

This book tells the story of Ray Charles’s musical upbringing in Florida, where he wrote his first songs and made his first recordings. It highlights the careers of Pensacola singers James and Bobby Purify and their producer, Papa Don Schroeder. It profiles Hank Ballard, who wrote the international hit song “The Twist” after seeing the dance in Tampa, and Gainesville singer Linda Lyndell. It describes the soul scene of Miami’s Overtown and Liberty City neighborhoods, home to Sam Moore of the legendary duo Sam and Dave, Willie Clarke and Johnny Pearsall of Deep City Records, and singer Helene Smith. Miami was also the longtime headquarters of Henry Stone, whose influential company T.K. Productions put out hits by Timmy Thomas, Latimore, Betty Wright, and KC and the Sunshine Band. Stone’s distribution deals influenced charts and radio airplay across the world.

Born in the era of segregation with origins in gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz, and reaching maturity during the civil rights movement, soul was one of the first music styles rooted in African American culture to cross over and gain a significant white audience. John Capouya draws on extensive interviews with surviving musicians to re-create the exciting atmosphere of the golden age of soul, establishing Florida as one of the great soul music capitals of the United States.