Sweet Soul Music : Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom

The Blues Foundation’s 1996 Hall of Fame “Classics in Blues Literature” award

One of Vibe Magazine’s “Eight Favorite Music Books,” Vibe, September 2007

One of Pitchfork Magazine’s “50 Favorite Music Books,” 2011.

One of the “Fifteen Books Every Music Fan Should Read,” Billboard 2022.

Renowned music writer Peter Guralnick takes on rhythm and blues in “the best history of ’60s soul music anyone has written or is likely to write” (New York Times).

A gripping narrative that captures the tumult and liberating energy of a nation in transition, Sweet Soul Music is an intimate portrait of the legendary performers—Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green among them—who merged gospel and rhythm and blues to create Southern soul music. Through rare interviews and with unique insight, Peter Guralnick tells the definitive story of the songs that inspired a generation and forever changed the sound of American music.

“One of the ten books [I] couldn’t live without.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates