Need help please!

N_Raid

I need help. I've just discovered soul music. At least what I think is soul (i was never too good at classifying music). A friend played a cd he burned of some of the stuff he likes and holy crap it was good.
I've got a few songs: A few Otis Redding, Billie Holiday(strange fruit - Wow!), Smokey Robinson, and i remembered in the film The Commitments were calling themselves 'The saviours of soul' so I got a few of their songs and thought they were pretty good.

So my question is where do I go from here? Any suggestions on Artists or even just particular songs would be very welcome. And are soul and mowotn the same or similar or what? cos my mam has some motown CDs and some of the songs are what i thought are soul. So I would have access to a lot if it's the same.

So any help woul be appreciated very much. Thanx

is_that_so

Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin - take your pick. Raid those Motown records

PunyHuman

Motown is a record label based in Detroit that has put out a bunch of the best soul artists over the years. So, all Motown is soul, but all soul is not Motown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown

Just look around, there are plenty of sites offering detailed info on soul/jazz/funk music. You are in for a treat.

fuse

Get a double CD compilation called "Blues Brother, Soul Sister"
It's a great collection of some of the best soul tunes made.

Definatly a good place to start from as they're all the most popular & famous tunes, then you can dig deeper into whichever artists you like most.

vibez

Try AL green, legend

BogOak

i'm actually kind of jealous of someone who's just discovering such a wealth of brilliant music. a few more names: stevie wonder, the temptations, curtis mayfield, lee dorsey. and why not try a bit of modern soul while you're at it: the brand new heavies, erykah badu.

StevieG

Yup added to the soul legends mentioned other modern soul worth checking includes anything by Dwele, D'Angelo, John Legend, Alicia Keyes, Angie Stone, Jill Scott etc etc