Ready Steady Soul

05/13/2026

Happening tonight!

Set in 1974, an authentic and uplifting tale of two friends whose horizons are opened up by the discovery of black American soul music.

05/01/2026

https://www.cinecenta.com/calendar/northern-soul/2026-05-13/

04/13/2026

Fontella Marie Bass (/bæs/; July 3, 1940 – December 26, 2012) was an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter best known for her number-one R&B hit "Rescue Me" in 1965. She also collaborated with artists like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, The Cinematic Orchestra, and her husband, jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie. Bass received two Grammy nominations and was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Fontella Bass was born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. She was the daughter of gospel singer Martha Bass, who was a member of the Clara Ward Singers, and the older sister of R&B singer David Peaston. At an early age, Fontella showed great musical talent. At the age of five, she provided the piano accompaniment for her grandmother's singing at funeral services, she sang in her church's choir at six, and by the time she was nine, she had accompanied her mother on tours throughout the South and Southwest United States.

Bass continued touring with her mother until the age of sixteen. As a teenager, Bass was attracted by more secular music. She began singing R&B songs at local contests and fairs while attending Soldan High School from which she graduated in 1958. At 17, she started her professional career working at the Showboat Club near Chain of Rocks, Missouri. In 1961, she auditioned on a dare for the Leon Claxton carnival show and was hired to play piano and sing in the chorus for two weeks, making $175 per week for the two weeks it was in town. She wanted to go on tour with Claxton but her mother refused; according to Bass, "she literally dragged me off the train". It was during this brief stint with Claxton that Bass was heard by vocalist Little Milton and his bandleader Oliver Sain, who hired her to back Little Milton on piano for concerts and recording.

Bass originally only played piano with the band, but one night Milton failed to arrive on time, so Sain asked her to sing and she was soon given her own featured vocal spot in the show. Milton and Sain eventually split up and Bass went with Sain; he also recruited male singer Bobby McClure and the group became known as "The Oliver Sain Soul R***e featuring Fontella and Bobby McClure".

With the support of Bob Lyons, the manager of St. Louis station KATZ, Bass recorded several songs released through Bobbin Records. She was produced by Ike Turner when she recorded on his labels Prann and Sonja. Her single "Poor Little Fool", released from Sonja in 1964, features Tina Turner. Bass saw no particular success with these singles. It was also during this period she met and subsequently married the jazz trumpeter, Lester Bowie.

Two years later, she quit the Milton band and moved to Chicago after a dispute with Oliver Sain. She auditioned for Chess Records, who immediately signed her as a recording artist to the subsidiary label Checker Records. Her first works with the label were several duets with Bobby McClure, who had also been signed to the label. Released early in 1965, their recording "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" (credited to Oliver Sain) found immediate success, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard R&B chart and peaking at No. 33 on the Hot 100. The song was later recorded by Ry Cooder and Chaka Khan on Cooder's album Bop 'Til You Drop (1979).

Bass and McClure followed their early success with "You're Gonna Miss Me" that summer, a song that had mild success, reaching the Top 30 on the R&B chart, although it made no significant impression on the pop chart. After a brief tour, Bass returned to the studio. The culmination of one particular session was an original composition with an aggressive rhythm section; backing musicians on the track included drummer Maurice White (later the leader of Earth, Wind, & Fire), bassist Louis Satterfield (fellow future Earth, Wind, & Fire member) and tenor saxophonist Gene Barge, with the young Minnie Riperton among the backing singers. The resulting song, "Rescue Me" shot up the charts in late 1965. After a month-long run at the top of the R&B chart, the song reached No. 4 on the US pop chart and No. 11 in the UK singles chart, and gave Chess its first million-selling single since Chuck Berry a decade earlier. It sold more than one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

Bass followed with "Recovery", which did moderately well, peaking at number 13 (R&B) and number 37 (pop) in early 1966. The same year brought two more R&B hits: "I Can't Rest" (backed with "I Surrender)" and "You'll Never Know". Her only album with Chess Records, The New Look, sold reasonably well, but Bass soon became disillusioned with Chess and decided to leave the label after only two years, in 1967. Bass claimed that although the credited co-writers, Carl Smith and Raynard Miner, and record producer Billy Davis had assured her that her contribution to co-writing the lyrics of "Rescue Me" would be acknowledged, this was never done.

I had the first million seller for Chess since Chuck Berry about 10 years before. Things were riding high for them, but when it came time to collect my first royalty check, I looked at it, saw how little it was, tore it up and threw it back across the desk.

Bass demanded a better royalty rate and artistic control; she approached her then manager Billy Davis about securing her writing credit on the song but was told not to worry about it. When the record came out and her name was still not on it, she was told it would be on the legal documents, but this never happened. She continued to agitate about the matter for a couple of years but later recalled: "It actually side-stepped me in the business because I got a reputation of being a trouble maker".

Tiring of the mainstream music scene, she and husband Lester Bowie left America and moved to Paris in 1969, where she recorded two albums with the Art Ensemble of Chicago – Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass and Les Stances a Sophie (both 1970). The latter was the soundtrack from the French movie of the same title, documented by the Library of Congress Jazz on the Screen database, which credits her as vocalist alongside Lester Bowie (trumpet), Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell (reeds), Malachi Favors (bass), and Don Moye (drums). She also appeared on Bowie's The Great Pretender (1981) and All the Magic (1982).

Even with the success of "Rescue Me", it was many years and much litigation before Bass would be credited with her share of the songwriting and the royalties. In 1993, Bass sued American Express for unauthorized use of the song in a commercial, and was awarded a significant settlement.

04/08/2026

Ray Charles - What'd I Say.................................................Ray Charles records What'd I Say on February 18, 1959. The single entered the US c...

04/08/2026

"What'd I Say" (or "What I Say") is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in June 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.

After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new sub-genre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded "I Got a Woman" in 1954. The gospel and rhumba influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and appeared in the 2003 and 2021 versions of Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list: at number 10 in 2003 and at number 80 in 2021.

Ray Charles was 28 years old in 1958, with ten years of experience recording primarily rhythm and blues music in a style similar to that of Nat King Cole and Charles Brown. He signed with Atlantic Records in 1952 where producers Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged him to broaden his repertoire. Wexler would later remember that Atlantic Records' success came not from the artists' experience, but the enthusiasm for the music: "We didn't know s**t about making records, but we were having fun". Ertegun and Wexler found that a hands-off approach was the best way of encouraging Charles. Wexler later said, "I realized the best thing I could do with Ray was leave him alone".

During Charles' heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, he toured for 300 days a year with a seven-piece orchestra. He employed another Atlantic singing trio named the Cookies and renamed them the Raelettes when they backed him up on the road. In 1954, Charles began merging gospel sounds and instruments with lyrics that addressed more secular issues. His first attempt was in the song "I Got a Woman", based either on the melodies from the gospel songs, The Southern Tones "It Must Be Jesus" or an uptempo, "I Got a Savior (Way Across Jordan)". It was Charles' first record that received attention from white audiences, but made some black audiences uncomfortable with its black gospel derivatives; Charles later stated that the joining of gospel and R&B was not a conscious decision.

In December 1958, he had a hit on the R&B charts with "Night Time Is the Right Time", an ode to carnality that was sung between Charles and one of the Raelettes, Margie Hendricks, with whom Charles was having an affair. Since 1956, Charles had also included a Wurlitzer electric piano on tour because he did not trust the tuning and quality of the pianos provided to him at every venue. On the occasions he would play it, he was derided by other musicians.

According to Charles' autobiography, "What'd I Say" was accidental when he improvised it to fill time at the end of a concert in December 1958. He asserted that he never tested songs on audiences before recording them, but "What'd I Say" was an exception. Charles himself did not recall where the concert took place, but Mike Evans in Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul placed the show in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Shows were played at "meal dances" which typically ran four hours with a half-hour break, and would end around 1 or 2 in the morning. Charles and his orchestra had exhausted their set list after midnight, but had 12 minutes left to fill. He told the Raelettes, "Listen, I'm going to fool around and y'all just follow me".

Starting on the electric piano, Charles played what felt right: a series of riffs, switching then to a regular piano for four choruses backed up by a unique Latin conga tumbao rhythm on drums. The song changed when Charles began singing simple, improvised unconnected verses ("Hey Mama don't you treat me wrong / Come and love your daddy all night long / All right now / Hey hey / All right"). Charles used gospel elements in a twelve-bar blues structure. Some of the first lines ("See the gal with the red dress on / She can do the Birdland all night long") are influenced by a boogie-woogie style that Ahmet Ertegun attributes to Clarence "Pinetop" Smith, who used to call out to dancers on the dance floor, telling them what to do through his lyrics. In the middle of the song, however, Charles indicated that the Raelettes should repeat what he was doing, and the song transformed into a call and response between Charles, the Raelettes, and the horn section in the orchestra as they called out to each other in ecstatic shouts and moans and blasts from the horns.

The audience reacted immediately; Charles could feel the room shaking and bouncing as the crowd was dancing. Many audience members approached Charles at the end of the show to ask where they could purchase the record. Charles and the orchestra performed it again several nights in a row with the same reaction at each show. He called Jerry Wexler to say he had something new to record, later writing, "I don't believe in giving myself advance notices, but I figured this song merited it".

The Atlantic Records studio had just purchased an 8-track recorder, and recording engineer Tom Dowd was familiarizing himself with how it worked. On February 18, 1959, Charles and his orchestra finally recorded "What'd I Say" at Atlantic's small studio. Dowd recalled that it did not seem special at the time of recording. It was second of two songs during the session and Charles, the producers, and the band were more impressed with the first one at the session, "Tell the Truth": "We made it like we made all the others. Ray, the gals, and the band live in the small studio, no overdubs. Three or four takes, and it was done. Next!" In retrospect, Ahmet Ertegun's brother Nesuhi credits the extraordinary sound of the song to the restricted size of the studio and the technologically advanced recording equipment used; the sound quality is clear enough to hear Charles slapping his leg in time with the song when the music stops during the calls and responses. The song was recorded in only a few takes because Charles and the orchestra had perfected it while touring.

Dowd, however, had two problems during the recording. "What'd I Say" lasted over seven and a half minutes when the normal length of radio-played songs was around two and a half minutes. Furthermore, although the lyrics were not obscene, the sounds Charles and the Raelettes made in their calls and responses during the song worried Dowd and the producers. A previous recording called "Money Honey" by Clyde McPhatter had been banned in Georgia and Ahmet Ertegun and Wexler released McPhatter's song despite the ban, risking arrest. Ray Charles was aware of the controversy in "What'd I Say": "I'm not one to interpret my own songs, but if you can't figure out 'What I Say', then something's wrong. Either that, or you're not accustomed to the sweet sounds of love."

Dowd solved the recording issues by mixing three versions of the song. Some call-outs of "Shake that thing!" were removed, and the song was split into two three-and-a-half minute sides of a single record, titling the song "What'd I Say Part I" and "What'd I Say Part II". The recorded version divides the parts with a false ending where the orchestra stops and the Raelettes and orchestra members beg Charles to continue, then goes on to a frenzied finale. Dowd later stated after hearing the final recording that not releasing the record was never an option: "we knew it was going to be a hit record, no question." It was held for the summer and released in June 1959

04/03/2026

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

04/03/2026

Carla Venita Thomas (born December 21, 1942) is an American singer, who is often referred to as the Queen of Memphis Soul. She is best known for her 1960s recordings for Atlantic and Stax including the hits "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)" (1960), "B-A-B-Y" (1966) and "Tramp" (1967), a duet with Otis Redding. She is the daughter of Rufus Thomas.

Thomas was born and raised in the Foote Homes Projects in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Along with her siblings, Marvell and Vaneese, she was one of three musical children of Rufus and Lorene Thomas. Despite growing up in the projects, the Thomas family lived near the Palace Theater on Beale Street, as Rufus was the theater's Master of Ceremonies (MC) for their amateur shows. This access not only gave Thomas her first taste of the music world but it also provided a springboard for her transformation into the Queen of the Memphis Sound.

In Memphis, the African-American-centered WDIA radio station sponsored a rotating musical group of high school students called the Teen Town Singers; notable alumni include Anita Louis and Isaac Hayes. Although the requirements to join the Teen Town Singers stated that the person should be of high school age, Thomas became a member in 1952 at the age of 10. She was able to sneak into their ranks thanks to the fact that her father Rufus was an on-air personality for the radio station. This opportunity with the Teen Town Singers did not come without its drawbacks though.

As a 10-year-old student, Thomas was responsible for not only attending classes and completing her schoolwork, but she also had to attend rehearsals on Wednesdays and Fridays after school and then perform at the station on Saturday. Despite the grueling schedule, she enjoyed the experience: "It was a lot of fun, it really was." She remained with the Teen Town Singers until the end of her senior year.

Thomas is best known for the work she completed for both Atlantic Records and most notably, Stax Records in the 1960s. Her first record, "'Cause I Love You" (1960), was a duet with her father, with brother Marvell on keyboards, that was released by Satellite Records, which eventually became Stax Records. Recorded when Thomas was still attending Hamilton High School in Memphis, the record drew enough local attention to catch the interest of Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records.

He signed a deal with the owners of Satellite Records, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, to distribute "Cause I Love You" and thus paved the way for Thomas’ most famous single, "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)", reaching number 10 on the pop chart and number 5 on the R&B chart. While she continued to have success on the R&B charts throughout the 1960s, her only other solo top 40 pop hit was "B-A-B-Y", reaching number 14 in 1966. Her duet, "Tramp", with Otis Redding reached number 26 on the pop chart the following year.and her album of duets with Otis Redding, King & Queen, was a number 18 hit in the UK Albums Chart.

"Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)"

Although this single would eventually chart within the Top 10 on the pop chart and within the top 5 on the R&B chart, it had an inauspicious beginning. Initially recorded at the Thomas family home, Rufus shopped the song to Vee-Jay Records in Chicago. Vee-Jay never followed through or actively pursued securing the distribution rights. Because of his belief in the song's potential, Rufus returned to Memphis and in the summer of 1960, Thomas would cut the teen love song that she wrote when she was only 15 years old. The song was released by Rufus and Carla in October 1960, to not much fanfare. By February 1961, thanks to a distribution deal between Satellite and Atlantic Records, the song was being distributed nationally through Atlantic just as Thomas was in the midst of her first year at Tennessee A&I University in Nashville. The success of the single also propelled Thomas into the spotlight, as she performed on American Bandstand. According to Thomas, "The record was young-sounding, romantic and it expressed what a lot of people wanted to say at that age, but still, I was surprised at how well it did". Not only did this song provide a launching pad for Thomas' first album, but it also gave Stax Records national exposure and label recognition.

04/03/2026

Chris Clark - Love's Gone Bad. Stereo remix from original mono version, 1966

04/03/2026

Christine Elizabeth Clark (born February 1, 1946), better known as Chris Clark, is an American soul, jazz, and blues singer, who recorded for Motown Records. Clark became known to Northern soul fans for hit songs such as 1965's "Do Right Baby Do Right" (written by Berry Gordy) and 1966's "Love's Gone Bad" (Holland-Dozier-Holland). She later co-wrote the screenplay for the 1972 motion picture Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross, which earned Clark an Academy Award nomination.

Clark was born in Santa Cruz, California. Clark recorded a song on Motown's subsidiary label "V.I.P." with "Love's Gone Bad", which reached No. 105 Pop, and No. 41 R&B in the U.S. in 1966. In Canada, the song made it to No. 95 on the RPM 100. In 1967, Clark released her first album entitled Soul Sounds on the Motown label. The album featured twelve songs including a rare Motown ballad called "If You Should Walk Away" (Berry Gordy Jr.) which was slated for release as a single, but never was. Another notable recording was the 1967 UK single "I Want to Go Back There Again" (Berry Gordy, Jr). She recorded one more album for Motown on its newly created rock label W**d entitled CC Rides Again (1969). The Belgian label Marginal released a CD of Soul Sounds made from the original master tapes (with unaltered mixes) and it contains the songs from Soul Sounds, five songs from CC Rides Again and three unreleased singles. A 50-track double-CD from Universal Music was released in 2005 entitled Chris Clark: The Motown Collection and includes Soul Sounds, C.C. Rides Again, and many unreleased Motown recordings. A reissue and remastered version of the Soul Sounds album was released by the Reel Music label in April 2009, the first time the album was issued on CD in the US. Clark became famous in England as the "white negress"[4] (a nickname meant as a compliment), because the six-foot platinum blonde, blue-eyed soul singer toured with fellow Motown artists, who were predominantly black.

Clark co-wrote the screenplay for the 1972 motion picture Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross, which earned her an Academy Award nomination. During the early 1970s, she was a vice-president of Motown's Film and Television Production Division in Los Angeles. In 1975, Clark was the Creative Assistant for the motion picture Mahogany. Ultimately, Clark served as Head of Creative Affairs for Motown from 1981 to 1989. She left the employ of Motown at this time and went on to re-record "From Head to Toe" for Motorcity Records in 1991, under the production of Ian Levine.

Clark performed the song "The Ghosts of San Francisco", written by R. Christian Anderson and John Thomas Bullock, for the feature film When the World Came to San Francisco in 2015. The music video for the song was winner of the Mixed Genre Jazz Film Award at the New York Jazz Film Festival in November 2016. Clark currently lives in Santa Rosa, California, and continues to work as a screenwriter, fine art photographer and singer.