Lucky Thirteen: The Best 70s Soul/R&B Songs

We are now well into the 2023 holiday season, and I am on a mission to maintain positive thoughts in a sea of negativity. A couple of recent blogs have detoured into the darkness, because really, there is some very bad mojo going on in the world these days, and it’s hard to ignore. But….

Ya can’t let it dictate ya life, now can ya?

I figure I have about three or four more blogs in me before the end of the year. These blogs I will dedicate to the gift of music, in the spirit of the holiday season.

The blogs will be written from my particular Boomer 2.0/American/dude point of view, which means they will have a very Boomer 2.0/American/dude bias. But fear not, friends – my recommendations will make you so happy and fulfilled you’ll trip the light fantastic all the livelong day (ha ha!).

Anyway….

I just like making lists. I make lists all the time, usually in my head. I make lists when I’m riding a bike, cooking dinner, trying to will myself to sleep. The lists often involve sports or food (greatest left-handed basketball players of all time; greatest world cuisines). But they also involve music, movies, TV shows, and books (best 90s sitcoms, best film noir, best Vance Cariaga novels — Voodoo Hideaway, perchance?).

Today’s blog is devoted to one of the greatest things in the history of humankind: 1970s soul/R&B music.

If you didn’t live in the era of 70s soul music (I did), then you should research it. It wasn’t just about the music, which was brilliant on its own, both sonically and lyrically. It was also about the social consciousness and cultural impact. When I mention 70s soul music, I’m mostly (but not exclusively) talking about Black American music of the 1970s.

First, a lesson in the 1970s: This was a decade when reality hit you in the face with the force of a winter gale, at least from an American point of view. The previous decade, the 1960s, was a period of uprising and Aquarius, equal parts social revolt and hippie enlightenment, with a major dose of economic prosperity (but only for certain folks).

That bled into the early ‘70s, until recession and oil embargoes and  joblessness and decaying cities and soaring crime rates and recession and Watergate pretty much killed our collective buzz. So we found a new buzz (humans always do).

American Black music took on a grittier, more cynical and angry edge in one respect, while in another respect it embraced a certain escapism best exemplified in the disco dance clubs that matriculated all over.

What you ended up with was a years-long period of amazing soul music from artists such as Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight, the O’Jays, the Spinners, the Stylistics, the Temptations, Sly and the Family Stone, Aretha Franklin, P-Funk, Earth Wind & Fire, the Brothers Johnson, War, the Isley Brothers – oh, I could go on and on.

I loved this musical era. I still do, to this day. So do many others – and not just those of a certain vintage, like me. Much of the hip-hop and pop you hear today is influenced by 70s soul music.

But enough! Time for me to unveil the 13 Best 1970s Soul/R&B Songs, based on a highly scientific, advanced statistical model that takes into account composition, vocal quality, musical accompaniment, social impact, and my own arbitrary genius for deciding which is best.

Mostly, the latter.

A couple of ground rules: Only one song per artist. They have to have been recorded in the 1970s (otherwise I would have included The Supremes’ “Someday We’ll Be Together,” which was recorded in 1969 but made its biggest chart impact in 1970). They have to fall under the general soul/R&B genre (Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” is a great soul song, but it charted more as a pop/rock hit).

Also, I could have listed 50 songs on this list, easily. But the number is 13. I have included YouTube video links with each song, whether I have the legal right or not.

Anyway, to the list (in no particular order of importance or preference)…..

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler), Marvin Gaye

This Masquerade, George Benson. Technically, George is a jazz/fusion jazz guitarist. But his rendition of this Leon Russell composition is pure 70s R&B.

Living for the City, Stevie Wonder.

Love and Affection, Joan Armatrading. Joan is a Brit, and the only non-American on the list. Some might put her in a folk category. I’m not one of them.

Stone in Love With You, The Stylistics.

When Will I See You Again, The Three Degrees

Papa Was a Rolling Stone, The Temptations. It was the third of September….

Let’s Stay Together, Al Green. The master.

Theme from Shaft, Isaac Hayes

Kiss and Say Goodbye, The Manhattans

Tell Me Something Good, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan. Chaaka Khan…Chaaka Khan….CCHHHaaaka Chaaaka Kahn…..

Use Me, Bill Withers

Oh Girl, The Chi-Lites