Every music genre shifts its boundaries over time, and soul music has done so time and time again, beginning with its heyday in the 1960s. Sam Cooke, who achieved fame first as a young gospel performer in the 40s, is often considered its inventor. Sometimes he is called the “King of Soul.” One of the last recordings he made was a country song called “Tennessee Waltz.” Cooke’s version turns the already-popular single into an electrifying lament for a lost lover.
Song of the Day: “Tennessee Waltz”
Max Gray
Read more of Max Gray at Big City Sasquatch or follow him on Twitter @City_Sasquatch. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Encounters, Mount Hope, Conte, tNY.press, and English Kills Review. He co-hosts the etymology podcast Words For Dinner and is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA program.