Soul Covers

Almost everything sounds better with a little bit of soul — or a lot — and when soul singers wrap their lungs around a great pop, rock, or country tune, they can heat it up to the boiling point, until it sounds like no one could've imagined. Ike & Tina Turner take the easygoing, roots-rock choogle of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" and pump it up into a hand-waving, hip-swiveling, Turner-testifying explosion. Whitney Houston remade "I Will Always Love You" so radically that many folks who heard her widescreen, power-belting R&B blockbuster never even knew it started out as a Dolly Parton country ballad. And you haven't heard Glen Campbell's Jimmy Webb-penned goodbye-girl country-pop hit "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" until you've heard Isaac Hayes break it into pieces and build it back up again with his slow-cooking, hot-buttered-soul reinvention.

Find hidden pathways to soul in Next Steps.

You never know to what unexpected corner a soul singer might turn for inspiration, and these artists do their soul-searching in some surprising sections of the musical universe. Otis Redding damn near stole "Satisfaction" from the Stones (no easy feat) by Stax-in' it up with gut-punching horn blasts, drummer Al Jackson's iron-man beat, and a vocal overdrive that would land lesser men in the hospital. Australia might not be a hotspot on many soul maps, but the Bee Gees' songs have been fiery grist for the American R&B mill. The Teddy Pendergrass takeover of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (playing this track's a good way to start) works up a supple, sexy, slow-jam sweat. And Chaka Khan & Rufus' slowed-down, funked-up feel for the formerly jittery "Jive Talkin'" struts with so much sexual oomph it seems almost illegal.

Saddle up for some funky country soul in Deep Cuts.

Country music and soul have always been kissin' cousins — two sides of the same musical coin. That's why so many soul stirrers have thrown some honky-tonk tunes onto their sonic skillet, with sweet, savory results. Hank Williams gets on the good foot courtesy of Soul Brother Number One on James Brown's funkification of the honky-tonk weeper "Your Cheatin' Heart." The Right Reverend Al Green makes a stop at the Hank bank, too, depositing some slow-rollin' Memphis magic to make the heartache melt away on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Speaking of the River City, it takes the wisdom of Solomon (Burke, that is) to put the more in mournful on Tom T. Hall's my-baby-left-me ballad "That's How I Got to Memphis," turning down the volume and turning up the soul-drenched sorrow.

Folk, rock, pop, country — every type of music's got its own kind of soul, so it's as natural as moonlight on Memphis for the greatest R&B singers to tap into that deep-down human spirit that powers just about every genre, and make it bloom into a glowing soul flower. In the hands of musical masters like the ones gathered here, soul is the language that can contain all others, and connect with fans of any other style. So whether Bobby Womack is grinding out a gutsy, greasy take on James Taylor's gentle singer-songwriter staple "Fire and Rain," or Etta James is letting it all hang out on an outrageously soulful update of the Association's sunshine-pop ditty "Never My Love," it's all part of an unbroken sonic circle that you can become a part of right here.