Old School Cool: 16 of the coolest vintage soul and blues songs you need in your life!

Soul and the Blues. Two of the coolest and most fruitful genres of music with untold riches of material written, performed and recorded in those genre’s golden decades in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Ear to the Ground have pored through some of our favourite songs from these periods to create a list of the 16 coolest vintage tracks you need in your life!

Jerry Butler – 'I’m A-Tellin You’ – Taken from ‘The Ice Man’ LP, this track launches in with a slippery smooth riff and finds Butler bemoan a life of austerity as he sings “days are getting longer, and my nights are getting shorter, and my wait gets darker, and my work gets harder” before the song hits that chorus.


Clarence Carter – ‘Slip Away’ – This song finds Carter pleading with his lover to slip away from her husband to be with him instead. Perhaps not the most virtuous of themes, but the track struts along with understated smoothness and when the horns kick in it takes the song to a whole new level.

Solomon Burke – ‘Can’t Nobody Love You’ - Boasting one of the rawest and richest voices music has ever known, Burke employs his pipes to great effect on this beautiful number. He begins his love song over a simple acoustic guitar and organ melody and by the time the choir’s backing vocals and the horns join the medley the song becomes something bigger and bolder entirely – a beautiful thing!


Shuggie Otis – ‘Strawberry Letter 23’ – If the music industry was fairer then Shuggie Otis would be a household name but, despite being relatively unknown, he is much loved and valued by musicians whom have drawn inspiration from the marriage of blues and funk that became his signature sound. This is perhaps his most famous song and the summery ramble is the perfect soundtrack to a sunny day.

Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters – ‘Tell Me Baby’ – Effortlessly cool horn driven melody. Beautiful backing vocals. That voice! All the ingredients needed for a seriously cool soul song. Here Mimms pleads with a lover to tell him that she still loves him and, whilst the outlook seems bleak, the song is so well composed you can’t help but sing along.


Donny Hathaway – ‘Jealous Guy’ – Hathaway takes one of John Lennon’s most loved solo songs, strips away the cosmic emotionality, and replaces it with a baudy lounge lizard piano solo before transforming the song from a downhearted exercise in self reflection in to something that feels joyous and free!

Bobby Womack – ‘I’m in Love’ – Taken from the stunning ‘Fly me to the Moon’ LP (what other artist could not only get away with covering Sinatra and the Mamas and the Papas but practically re-invent them?) this understated track is an example of beautiful simplicity – Womack’s stunning vocal is elevated by the shimmering guitar and modest horns. Beautiful!


Sam Cooke – ‘Desire Me’ – Possessing arguably music’s most purely soulful voice, Sam Cooke’s music is of course loved by many. This track rarely makes it on to any greatest hits compilations but is as good an example of Cooke’s stunning vocal and simple love songs as many of his more famous hits.

The Isley Brothers – ‘It’s Your Thing’ – This song puts up a good fight to be considered the coolest in this list. It launches in with a raunchy guitar rhythm before the vocals and horns quickly catch up as the group sing “It’s your thing do what you’re gonna do, I can’t tell you who to sock it to”. Effortlessly cool!


Billy Preston – ‘Nothing from Nothing’ – Preston initially found fame as a session musician. His most famous guest appearance was in support of the Beatles on the ‘Let it Be’ LP before he went on to record his own material. ‘Nothing from Nothing’ is pure feel good summer soul and deserves a place on your summer playlist – for further listening check out Mac Miller’s excellent and subtle cover on Spotify!

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell – ‘Two Can Have a Party’ – The Gaye and Terrell pairing produced some great soulful duets with the most famous being the hugely loved ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’. This track is perhaps lesser known but is still a great example of the duo’s Bacharach leaning love songs. Light-hearted and fresh from start to finish.


Carla Thomas – ‘B-A-B-Y’ – This classic soul number was memorably featured in the Edgar Wright film ‘Baby Driver’ and is another fine effortlessly cool soul song as Thomas murmurs “I love it when you call me baby” over a track so upbeat you can’t help but get lost in its flow.

Mel Torme – ‘Comin Home Baby’ – This piano powered rattle finds Torme duelling with his perfectly pitched backing singers as he promises his lover that he is coming home before an organ solo as fine as anything produced by Booker T and the MG’s slips in to complete the picture.


Al Green – ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ – Al Green’s angelic croon. One of the Beatles’ most loved songs. What on Earth is there not to love here? Green takes the Beatles early smash hit and reinvents it as something straight out of Motown with the strutting guitar and horns transforming the Lennon-McCartney track into out and out soul – blissful!


Otis Redding – ‘Security’ – No playlist of this nature would be complete without an Otis Redding number and ‘Security’ finds a home here as it is a great showcase of Redding’s stunning ability to harmonise his raw and smoky vocal with his horn section. This track finds Redding pleading for some security from his love and is one of the legend’s finest songs.

Odetta – ‘Movin It On’ – Odetta had one of the strongest voices of her time and this upbeat and summery track, taken from the brilliant ‘Odetta Sings’ LP, finds her encouraging everyone that “any old way you can make it baby, keep on movin it on”.