Memphis soul - Definition and Overview

Memphis soul is stylish, funky, uptown soul music that is not as hard edged as Southern soul. It is a shimmering, sultry style produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring tasteful, melancholic, melodic horns, organ, bass, and drums.

Pop/Soul/blues trumpeter Willie Mitchell is one of several prime movers in the development of the style in the 1960s and 1970s. A representative Memphis soul artist is Al Green, who recorded at Hi Records. Several Stax artists also sometimes performed in this style, including Booker T. & the M.G.'s, who also sometimes played a harder-edged Southern soul. After the rise of disco in the late 1970s, Memphis soul declined in popularity.