Country Soul
Muscle Shoals horns, Stax phrasing, a country song.
Country and soul have shared a backbeat since Ray Charles cut 'Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music' in 1962. The lineage runs through Bobbie Gentry, Tony Joe White, Bettye LaVette — and today through Yola, Charley Crockett, Allison Russell and Jaime Wyatt.
Names worth knowing
USA · 1984 — present
Charley Crockett
Keeps the bones, throws out the gristle.
USA · 1973 — present
Ray LaMontagne
A voice you can hear from across a room you haven't entered yet.
USA · 1986 — present
Jaime Wyatt
Outlaw country with country-soul horns.
USA · 1979 — present
Allison Russell
Banjo, French, English, and a backbone of soul.
USA · 1977 — present
Rhiannon Giddens
The historian-musician of American roots.
Canada · 1967 — 1999
The Band
Made the foundational North American Americana record.
United Kingdom · 1983 — present
Yola
Bristol-born country soul that floors every room.
Sweden · 1990 — present
Sarah Klang
Dream-country from Gothenburg.
Denmark · 1976 — present
Kira Skov
Cinematic Danish songwriter with a country-soul streak.
Iceland · 1980 — present
Junius Meyvant
Icelandic folk-soul with horns.