The first ever guide to soul recordings, this book - the latest in a popular and well-established series - is an essential purchase for anyone wishing to build up a comprehensive record collection.
Each chapter of the Guide provides an essential list of fifteen releases, and a basic list of thirty. The essential releases are those from artists most likely to be recognized by the general public - singers such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder - and they each get extended comments. The basic lists is designed to supplement this and cover some of the 'lesser' artists, and also the tangents and by-ways of the genre - Latin Soul, Low rider music and soul-blues.

In its 405 entries, the Guide covers not only music from the golden era of soul - the early 1960s to the mid-1970s - but also the 1950s rhythm and blues that preceded it, and the disco, funk and African American styles which followed.

Eight of the leading British and American experts have contributed to the guide, each concentrating on a particular aspect of soul music - whether it be an account of the music produced in a certain region (such as New York, Chicago, the West Coast, the South or Europe), or one of the periods of the style's development.