On Dec. 11, Aretha Franklin staged her first New York City gig, and Run-DMC became the first hip-hop group to cover a song of ...

Discover the significant world events, notable birthdays, and notable deaths that occurred on December 11. Check what ...

Young Aretha would meet visitors to the Franklin home from every walk of life, including some of the most prominent gospel musicians of the day (Clara Ward and James Cleveland), many of the great ...

The breakout star had no idea what would come of his debut in Ryan Coogler's critically acclaimed horror film. Now, he's ...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Steve Cropper, the lean, soulful guitarist and songwriter who helped anchor the celebrated Memphis backing band Booker T. and the M.G.’s at Stax Records and co-wrote the classics ...

Legendary R&B and soul singer Bobby Womack is known as much for his scandalous love life as he is for his catalog of hit songs. He shocked the music world when he married Barbara Cooke, the widow of ...

Music played a key role in the civil rights movement. People marched to freedom songs while artists from Sam Cooke to Bob Dylan took the message to the masses in recordings as enduring as "A Change is ...

For generations, Black musicians have shaped American culture and entertainment— yet many have struggled to profit from their talent alone. As a result, artists from gospel pioneers to hip-hop icons ...

Without the template he set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it’s possible we would never have enjoyed those artists. New Jersey’s Bradd Marquis is another artist who Cooke influenced. On June 14, ...

Before this, he had been in gospel outfits The Five Echoes – who he joined in 1951 or 1952 at age 17 – and, from 1957, The Highway QC’s, who Sam Cooke had passed through. In August 1960, he took on ...

Soul music was a fundamental part of American history as it influenced and gave voice to the Civil Rights movement. The combination of gospel, R&B, and jazz conveyed the African-American identity with ...

If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Illustrator Nikkolas Smith tells PEOPLE he hopes the forthcoming book “can act as a supplement to Mr. Cooke’s timeless anthem for freedom ...