Soul music is a music genre that combines rhythm and blues and gospel music, originating in the United States.
According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying."

Origins
Later examples of soul music include recordings by The Staple Singers (such as I'll Take You There), and Al Green's 1970s recordings, done at Willie Mitchell's Royal Recording in Memphis. Mitchell's Hi Records continued the Stax tradition in that decade, releasing many hits by Green, Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, O. V. Wright and Syl Johnson. Bobby Womack, who recorded with Chips Moman in the late 1960s, continued to produce soul recordings in the 1970s and 1980s.
The city of Detroit produced some important later soul recordings. Producer Don Davis worked with Stax artists such as Johnnie Taylor and The Dramatics. Early-1970s recordings by The Detroit Emeralds, such as Do Me Right, are an important link between soul and the later disco style. Motown Records artists such as Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson contributed to the evolution of soul music, although their recordings were considered more in a pop music vein than those of Redding, Franklin and Carr.
Although stylistically different from classic soul music, recordings by Chicago-based artists such as Jerry Butler and The Chi-Lites are often considered part of the genre.
By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres. The social and political ferment of the times inspired artists like Gaye and Curtis Mayfield to release album-length statements with hard-hitting social commentary. Artists like James Brown led soul towards funk music, which became typified by 1970s bands like Parliament-Funkadelic and The Meters. More versatile groups like War, the Commodores and Earth, Wind and Fire became popular around this time. During the 1970s, some slick and commercial blue-eyed soul acts like Philadelphia's Hall & Oates and Oakland's Tower of Power achieved mainstream success, as did a new generation of street-corner harmony or city-soul groups like The Delfonics and Howard University's Unifics.
By the end of the 1970s, disco and funk were dominating the charts. Philly soul and most other soul genres were dominated by disco-inflected tracks. During this period, groups like The O'Jays and The Spinners continued to turn out hits.
After the death of disco in the early 1980s, soul music survived for a short time before going through yet another metamorphisis. With the introduction of influences from electro music and funk, soul music became less raw and more slickly produced, resulting in a newer genre that was called R&B, which sounded very different from the original rhythm and blues style. This new version of R&B was often labelled contemporary R&B.

1970s and later

Detroit (Motown) soul
For more details on this topic, see Deep soul and Southern soul
The terms deep soul and southern soul generally refer to a driving, energetic soul style combining R&B's energy with pulsating southern United States gospel music sounds. Memphis, Tennessee label Stax Records nurtured a distinctive sound, which included putting vocals further back in the mix than most contemporary R&B records, using vibrant horn parts in place of background vocals, and a focus on the low end of the frequency spectrum. The vast majority of Stax releases were backed by house bands Booker T and the MGs (with Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson) and the Memphis Horns (the splinter horn section of the Mar-Keys). The label counted Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, William Bell, and Eddie Floyd among its stars.

Deep soul and Southern soul

For more details on this topic, see Memphis soul. Memphis soul

For more details on this topic, see Philadelphia soul. Philadelphia soul

For more details on this topic, see Psychedelic soul. Psychedelic soul

For more details on this topic, see Blue-eyed soul. Blue-eyed soul

For more details on this topic, see Neo soul. Neo soul
For more details on this topic, see Northern soul and modern soul
The term Northern soul was coined by music journalist Dave Godin in 1970 after a visit to the Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester, England. The term refers to rare soul music played by DJs at night clubs in northern England. The songs originally consisted of obscure American soul recordings with an uptempo beat, similar to (and including) those on Motown Records and more obscure labels such as Okeh. Modern soul was an updated version of the northern soul sound.

Northern soul and Modern soul
Soul music from the British Isles has become increasingly popular worldwide and arguably better than American Soul where the genre of music began. Artists such as Joss Stone have made an impact worldwide with number one's in various countries including the country that gave birth to soul, America. Soul had began in Britain from overseas influences, especially America, beginning in the 1970s. Soul To Soul arguably were the starting of the worldwide influence of British Soul as they gained number one's and worldwide awards including emmys. During the 1980s, Britain was the world center of soul as in America soul music was never in the charts and did not achieve what the acclaimed success that British soul artists did manage to achieve. Now at the current time there are many british soul artists with the likes of Joss Stone there is also John Legend,Beverley Knight and Jamiroquai who are very successful artists worldwide.

Notable soul artists