Why the early '70s was the greatest period for live soul albums
Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, December 2016
JAMES BROWN invented the modern live soul album with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963, and Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and Etta James recorded towering albums in that decade, but the golden era for documenting live soul music on record was the first half of the 1970s. What you hear in the dozen-plus absolutely essential LPs that came out from 1971 through 1974 was music that was sensual, explosive, intimate, defiant, confident, and groundbreaking, played for ecstatic audiences in small clubs and large arenas; in rock palaces like the Fillmore West and concert venues like Carnegie Hall; in London, England and Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
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