Folk Soul

Folk soul is the meeting of folk songwriting and soul singing: acoustic, narrative songs delivered with gospel-trained voices, melisma and church-bred feeling over arrangements that keep one foot in the coffeehouse and one in the soul revue. It formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s around *Richie Havens*, *Terry Callier* and *Bill Withers*, whose "Just as I Am" (1971) set its standard of plainspoken intimacy, and around *Sixto Rodriguez* and *Gil Scott-Heron*. Revived in the 2010s by *Michael Kiwanuka*, *Leon Bridges* and *Valerie June*, it remains the home of singers too soulful for folk and too spare for R&B.