Soul Soundtracks: Remember The Titans

Inter-racial soul sing-alongs were a big part of Remember The Titans, the (based-on-a) true story of a newly de-segregated high school football team.

Here's one of several Motown tracks from the album, "You've Got To Earn It" by the Temptations:

Soul Soundtracks: The Commitments

This 1991 release, about a soul cover band in Dublin, offers not just a great soul movie soundtrack - it is a great soul album, full stop. The band draws heavily from the Southern soul tradition, covering Otis Redding, Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, James Carr, Aretha's two tracks from the infamous Muscle Shoals session, and more.

Call it blasphemy if you like, but sometimes I have trouble deciding which I like better: the originals, or the covers by The Commitments.

Here's Mustang Sally:

Soul Soundtracks: Now and Then

Every few years, soul makes a sort-of comeback in the guise of a modern movie soundtrack, and I'd like to honour those albums here.

First up is an old junior high slumber-party standby, Now and Then. Sure, the CD includes plenty of pop cheese from the likes of The Archies and Tony Orlando & Dawn, but it also features a couple of pretty decent Jackson 5 tracks, one of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs (Signed, Sealed, Delivered) and Band of Gold by Freda Payne, seen here with vintage vinyl crackle included: