"Sweet Soul Music is the history of one of the most remarkable periods in American popular culture. It is the story of soul, born in the late 1950s, when black rhythm-and-blues singers began to adopt the sound of gospel, working their audiences with the fervid passion of preachers... Here is the story of stars like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green. Sweet Soul Music is also about the business of music; about Jerry Wexler, whole love of soul helped propel Atlantic Records to its astonishing success; Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, who left their jobs at a bank, bought an abandoned movie theater, and turned it into Stax Records; and Muscle Shoals, the pathbreaking studio that began life in a podiatrist's office with egg cartons stapled to the walls."--Publisher's description.