Notable artist of the soul movement include Aretha Franklin, Smokie Robinson and the Miracles, Al Green, Ray Charles, the Delfonics, the Spinners, Gladys Knight, Sam Cooke, Diana Ross, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, the Dells, the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Righteous Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Patti Labelle, Jackie Wilson, Chaka Kahn, Marvin Gaye, and Minnie Riperton, to name a few.

Groups such as The Rascals had soul-tinged pop songs, but it was the soulful vocals of Felix Cavaliere that gave them the blue-eyed soul sound. By the mid-1960s, British singers Dusty Springfield, Eric Burdon, and Tom Jones had become leading vocal stars of the emerging style.

The soul sound began to take shape during the 1950s, the beginning of the modern Civil Rights movement. Pioneers Ray Charles and James Brown, followed by Brown, Sam Cooke, and Curtis Mayfield in the 1960s, tapped into the gospel music tradition to give a new voice to a people struggling for their rights as first-class citizens.