How U.S. racially-charged riots inspired this iconic hit.
On its surface, Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” was a pop song. A damn good one too: it reached No. 2 on the U.S. charts and outsold every other single in Stax Records’ catalogue. Of course, like all great songs, it goes so much deeper than that.
In an interview with NPR, Stax songwriter (and future singer of his own accord) Isaac Hayes explained where he and co-writer David Porter got the idea for the song, inspired by a wave of violence that gripped America during the height of the civil-rights movement and a move of solidarity that Black citizens did to protect each other. “I got the idea from watching on TV the riots in Detroit. It was said that if you put “soul” on the door of your business establishment, they wouldn’t burn it. Then the word “Soul,” it was a galvanizing kind of thing for African Americans, and it had an effect of unity, it was said with a lot of pride. So I thought, “Why not write a tune called ‘Soul Man.'” And all you had to do was write about your personal experiences, because all African Americans in this country at the time had similar experiences.”
No stranger to incredible instrumental hooks at Stax, Sam & Dave were backed up on “Soul Man” by the label’s in-house band, Booker T. & The MG’s, So thrilled was the duo during the recording – particularly by the exalting horns of the Mar-Keys and the guitar licks of Steve Cropper – that Sam spontaneously shouted praise for Cropper mid-take. “[Isaac] was always coming up with these changes,” Cropper later said in an interview. “He was such a good jazz musician, and he could come up with these different sets of changes, and sometimes leave it to me to put some sort of lick or something on top of those changes, and that’s how the intro of ‘Soul Man’ was born.” (The guitarist reportedly fashioned an impromptu slide out of a Zippo lighter, giving the song its definitive start.)
Though it was a song for the Black experience, “Soul Man” did indeed become embraced by everyone regardless of race. The Blues Brothers, an ensemble consisting of Saturday Night Live actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi with the backing of first-call soul musicians (including Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, another member of The MG’s), covered “Soul Man” in concert and had a Top 20 hit with a live version. The song even became an unofficial theme of sorts for a 1986 film of the same name, in which a teen pretended to be Black to earn a college scholarship. (Sam Moore returned to re-record the theme alongside rocker Lou Reed.)
Political incorrectness aside, nothing has dulled the impact of the original. It was the second-ever recipient of the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Group and was later selected for preservation in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
