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http://www.stompradio.com/

STOMPRADIO IS A 24 HOUR INTERNET RADIO STATION PLAYING THE BEST IN SOUL MUSIC FOR THE WORLD TO ENJOY

As we enter a new year - a new decade, lets ponder on some forgotten time when Soul music was becoming more popular, when black musicians, poets and film makers were starting to make an impact on the industry and when The Civil Rights Movement felt it necessary to stand before the prejudice’s of middle white America and make a change.

It’s 1970 and Don Cornelius’s Soul Train has recently been launched, the Black Panther Movement has been active for several years now and tensions are thraught in the community.  It is five years since Malcolm X was assassinated and but two years since the same fate took Martin Luther King Jr.  Curtis Mayfield has released his first solo album on the new Curtom label and the state of the country’s politics and social difficulties are the subject matter what with ‘We the People Who are darker than Blue’ summing up the difficult times as the new decade opened it’s doors.

Fourty years on and how many changes have been made?

So let us look at this period when soul music shook the world and to a forgotten programme that brought these varying creative individuals to the living rooms.  Where music joined poetry, where cinema joined politics, where singers and musicians joined to show their wares and where you just may have seen the likes of James Earl Jones, The Reverend Louis Farrakhan, Muhammad Ali and Stokely Carmichael.

This was SOUL! - from the 13/WNET/NET network out of New York City.

Soul! launched in September 1968 and by 1970 had showcased many talents that include Barbara Acklin, Ben E King, Jerry Butler, The Five Stairsteps and Roberta Flack to name but a few.  It had actors, congresswomen Shirley Chisholm and poetry from The Last Poets.  It had dancers, playwrights and comedians - it had Pharoah Sanders!

So why, I hear you ask, is this such a mystery?  Well, the shows were recorded for the people of New York as a platform for culture, variety and to promote Afro-Americans in whatever quest they travelled.  It was recorded in real time on video and edited prior to broadcast - the first time this procedure had been adopted but which still gave the ‘live’ feel the viewer would have been familiar with.  It allowed people like Curtis Mayfield and Wilson Pickett to present shows rather than perform and it even encouraged Miss Black America and a magician to appear - truly revolutionary.  The age old problem of finance drew tight the curtains in 1973 and perhaps closed a period in time when brothers were making films like Superfly… History worth knowing!

So what now?  Well, the shows are gradually resurfacing and a dedicated website gives us the opportunity to watch some of the original shows in full, and that is where I would now like to take you.

Be prepared to be astounded at Earth Wind & Fire’s performance, or Leroy Burgess’s first outing with the band Black Ivory.  Witness too the phenomenal singing of Zulema and of the band New Birth Inc. who will amaze.

At last the nation is getting SOUL!