Soul music is the term adopted to describe African-American popular music in the United States of America as it evolved from the 1950s to the 1960s and 1970s. Some people see soul as simply a new term for rhythm-and-blues music, however, in reality, a new generation of artists has reinterpreted the sounds of pioneering rhythm-and-blues singers of the 1950s (such as Chuck Berry , Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Ray Charles) whose music became popular among white Americans and was transformed into what became known as rock 'n' roll. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The sound of Motown, which grew up in the 1960s, is also considered soul music. In addition to its pop-oriented artists like the Supremes, the Motown label produced artists such as Marvin Gaye ("Can I Get a Witness", 1963) and Stevie Wonder ("Uptight, Everything's Alright", 1966). Pure soul music was popularized by artists like these around the 1960s. Singers like Otis Redding, screamed, screamed, begged, stomped and cried, recalling the blues screamers of the Deep South of the United States. Motown began in Detroit, Michigan, the name is also referred to as Motor City. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African-American-owned record label that achieved significant crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels, including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the United States, were the most successful proponents of what became known as the Motown Sound, a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence. Motown achieved spectacular success for a small record company: 79 records in the Top Ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1960 and 1969. According to Time Magazine in the following decade, the enormous number of artists, musicians and groups topped the charts produced by Motown defied understanding: Martha and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye. It all became part of what would become known as the Motown Sound. Great melodies, lots of tambourines and handclaps, blaring horns, interaction between the lead singer and his backing singers, driving bass lines and foot-slapping drum parts. As for soul music, it was also developed in the 1950s and combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music was a major influence at the same time as Motown during the civil rights movement. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "the music that arises from the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a funky, secular form of testimony." Catchy rhythms, underlined by hand clapping and extemporaneous body movements, are an important characteristic of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead singer and the choir and a particularly tense vocal sound. Soul and Motown have a lot in common: they had a big influence during the civil rights movement and have more or less the same kind of sound. Stax records, which were the birth of soul records, broke a lot of boundaries, such as blacks and whites working together during a very segregated time. Although both Stax and Motown produced songs in the soul music genre during the same period, their sounds were far from identical. Motown's signature sound was refined soul and.".