Delfonics

Quentin Tarantino established himself as one of the few filmmakers to effectively use pop music with his first film Reservoir Dogs, a movie where the music was integral to the success of the film yet also worked well as a collection of songs. Jackie Brown, Tarantino's long-awaited third feature, finds him exploring new territory, creating an homage to blaxploitation flicks as well as a surprisingly subtle character study and love story, and its soundtrack appropriately finds him in new territory as well. The soundtrack still features snippets of dialogue, which simply aren't as effective separated from the film as those from Pulp Fiction, but the unified collection of '70s soul and funk is refreshing. He has wisely selected a batch of songs that haven't been worn out by oldies radio, building the bulk of the album with cult favorites like Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street," Bill Withers' "Who Is He (And What Is He to You?)," Randy Crawford's "Street Life," Minnie Riperton's "Inside My Love".

This box set is a companion piece to the 8CD set From Sacred To Secular: A Soul Awakening, which traced the history of soul music from its earliest antecedents in 1927 right up to the first true soul records released in 1962. Here we continue the story from 1962 up to the end of the decade, covering a large portion of soul music’s Golden Age with 100 tracks by soul’s greatest 60s superstars (from Aretha Franklin to Stevie Wonder) and a whole host of “lesser” names whose contribution to the musical genre shouldn’t be overlooked. The CDs cover all of soul’s many styles from early doo-wop and R&B influenced music to the funk grooves which were to prove so popular in the 70s. Other harbingers of the coming decade can be found here in the first sweet-soul Philly sounds from the Delfonics and Intruders, early funk rock (Sly & The Family Stone) and Chicago’s renaissance via Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions.

Any serious pop music collection begins here. The list is based on commercial success as well as quality and timelessness of the artist's music. Suggested tracks are included to get you started. These performers are the bedrock of popular music.