ABSTRACT
Chapter 3, “Soul Sisters,” analyzes female singers of the classic soul period between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s and argues that legends such as Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone created a distinct kind of cultural, social, and political expression that loosely drew from the Black Power Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. For the most part, soul women’s work dealt with many of the same topics as their soul brother and White female pop rock counterparts. However, soul sisters engaged these topics from African American women’s standpoint. Black female soul, funk, and disco music documented the ranges of responses African American women had to both Black masculinist and White feminist protest in the 1960s and 1970s while communicating many of the views and values of the Black Women’s Liberation Movement. This chapter chronicles the emergence of African American women’s utilization of soul as a form of musical protest and how this distinct dissent became foundational for the Black women’s funk and disco that followed in its wake.
