Memphis Soul

Memphis soul is the Southern soul style recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s and 1970s, above all at #Stax Records# and #Hi Records#. It favours a raw, unhurried feel: a rhythm section that plays behind the beat, terse horn riffs, Hammond organ and gospel-trained singers delivering lyrics with plainspoken intensity. Where Detroit's Motown polished soul for the pop charts, Memphis kept the grit of the blues and the church in it. Its central figures — *Otis Redding*, *Sam & Dave*, *Isaac Hayes*, *Al Green* and the house band *Booker T. & the M.G.'s* — defined the sound of American soul music's most earthbound school.