The Rough Guide to Soul 100 Essential CDs (Rough Guide 100 Esntl CD Guide) [Paperback]

Peter Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 2000 | Series: Rough Guide 100 Esntl CD Guide

Each title in The Rough Guide 100 Essential CD series is a blueprint for a great record collection. Containing detailed reviews of 100 recordings from acknowledged classics to those that deserve to be, and brief bios of the artists responsible, these little books are condensed histories of the musical genres they explore.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides (November 23, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858285623
• ISBN-13: 978-1858285627
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,034,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So-So Soul Collection, December 27, 2001

By 

Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Soul 100 Essential CDs (Rough Guide 100 Esntl CD Guide) (Paperback)

The Rough Guide to Soul collects their 100 essential soul recordings in a compact book (it is literally a pocket book as it can easily fit into your front shirt pocket). Obviously due to the dimensions of the book, each album is not reviewed in great detail. The reviews are decent, nothing spectacular. The one plus the book has is that while there are numerous collections like this for rock or combine all genres, there are very few that concentrate only on soul music. The biggest negative I have is that they include greatest hits collections. Most all of the Motown groups like The Four Tops, The Temptations and The Supremes are represented by greatest hits collections. While they are more noted for their singles work, they and many other Motown groups made some outstanding albums in the 60's prior to the groundbreaking album work of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye in the 70's.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful, but perhaps overbroad, October 13, 2006

By 

Michael Bulger (Rochester, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Soul 100 Essential CDs (Rough Guide 100 Esntl CD Guide) (Paperback)

I may not be an expert, but I do know that "soul" represents a fusion of R&B with gospel. Moreover, since its inception in the late 50's and early 60's, soul has developed side-by-side with R&B, with a number of artists straddling the thin divide between them, and additional cross-pollination in the meantime. Soul in turn begat funk, which then immediately began interacting with the other genres as well. Given all of this, it is to be expected that a volume listing 100 "essential" soul recordings will include R&B and gospel antecedents, R&B and funk artists who also perform soul, and all sorts of hybrids for which simple categorization is not possible. But one wonders how this can justify the inclusion of pure disco/funk acts like Cameo or The Gap Band, much less Donna Summer, who is described in this very book as having a voice lacking even a hint of the church in it.

Everyone, of course, will have their disagreements with a given list of 100 "essential" recordings. Other reviewers here have complained about a perceived over-reliance on "Greatest Hits" packages; in my view, a guide like this can serve the valuable function, at least for some artists, of pointing out which of the often many such packages available really provides the best overview. And it should go without saying that - especially given the time and the singles-dominated genre from which most of these recordings originate - the typical soul LP is loaded with largely worthless filler, making "Greatest Hits" releases even more desirable.

Regardless, this book is a pocket-sized reference, of sorts, containing brief two-page listings for 100 CDs the writer proposes as "essential" for a good collection of "soul" music. Each listing introduces the performer, provides a very brief biographical and/or career overview, occasionally includes additional information for the specific recording, and finally summarizes the key tracks on each. As such, read cover-to-cover the book can serve as a quick-and-dirty primer to the recorded history of soul music (although with a few inevitable gaps). It can serve to provide interesting new suggestions for your own collection - for my part, James Carr, Ann Peebles and The Jimmy Castor Bunch were all new to me, but definitely worth the effort to find subsequent to reading this book. James Carr, in particular, is a real discovery - imagine encountering an artist with the depth and style of Otis Redding all over again. It is also possible to read this book and come away with a new appreciation for artists you may have never listened that closely to before - for example, Chic, which in my mind was just another throwaway disco act before I read this. I may still not be quite as enthusiastic about them as the author is here, but at least I'm paying a bit more attention.

It should also be noted that there are more like 200 CDs mentioned in here, since at the end of each entry an alternate selection is mentioned for each artist, albeit without any associated commentary. Occasionally these are just different Greatest Hits packages that cover the same ground, but more often they represent entirely different albums or collections from other periods in the artist's career.

That said, it might have been a better idea to split the funk and disco, not to mention the hip-hop and the New Jack Swing, into another guide and so provide more room for the soul music.

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to the soul catalogue, September 14, 2005

By 

Paul D. Evans "paul evans" (london, ont. Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Soul 100 Essential CDs (Rough Guide 100 Esntl CD Guide) (Paperback)

The reviews have been rather harsh of Peter Shapiro's Rough Guide to Soul. It is a good introduction to soul. Shapiro is well-informed about the music. I found interesting information about the Meters, Ann Peebles and James Carr some of the unsung heroes of soul. The main criticism of the book is that it includes lots of greatest hits selections. I think this really isn't fair because in the 50s and 60s soul artists concentrated on hit singles not albums. Shapiro is right to focus on the Greatest Hits as the best works. Remember it is just an introduction and if you really like the music you can start investigating the back catalogue. Shapiro's book is a good starting point to investigate the wonderful world of soul.