Australian R&B and Soul Music

The R & B and soul music of the Australia had a great impact on the Australian popular music. It has been noted that several recordings in this genre by American acts of the late 20^th century were not played on Australian radio. Circumstantial prove has shown that racism was a key problem in his book on the history of Australia radio, author and broadcaster. Wayne measured that when a local Melbourne Dj of the 1960’s played the new Ike and Tina Turner single that it was immediately pulled from the playlist by the station’s program manager for being too noisy and too black.

As a result of that, many local soul/ R&B hits of this time were cover version records of the Australia acts. In spite of the radio’s disinclination to play America soul/R&B originals, these styles were keenly accepted by the local performers who however covers the soul/R&B standard in the set lists of several acts that include the Max Merritt and the Meteors, Doug Parksinon, Jeff St John, the Groove, the Groove, the Twilights, Renee Geyer and several others.

An Australia single, Renee Geyer came to fame in the mid 1970’s and has since then bee long regarded as one of the finest exponents of jazz, soul and R&B idioms. She became the commercial success as a solo artist in Australian, with her “man’s world: who is the rock historian.” Lan McFarlane called her as having a rich, soulful, passionate and husky vocal delivery. Geyer’s iconic status in the Australian music industry was shown when she was received into the ARIA hall of fame on 14 July 2005.

In line with Geyer success, American born vocalist Marcia Hines appeared as one of the Australia’s most successful solo singers. She first came to fame in the early 1970’s with the critically commended roles in the local stage productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar in which she was the first African-America to play the role of Mary Magdalene before going to solo career. By the late 1970’s she was one of Australia’s top star, which she won numerous Queen of Pop awards together with hosting her own national TV variety series.

According to the initial dissolution in 1982 Cold Chisel lead vocalist Jimmy Barnes embarked on a successful solo career that has continued from the 1980’s still date. Several of Barnes music has featured versions of songs from this genre and his chart-topping album soul deep in 1991. It contained entirely of covers of classic 1960’s soul/ R&B covers.

The Australian soul singers / songwriters comprises of people like Daniel Merriweather, who has numerous successful team work with artists like Mark Ronson - who released his official introduction album, Love and War in June 2009. It then entered the UK albums chart at number two. After then the launching of his career as the winner of an early series of Australian idol, soul singer/ songwriter Guy Sebastian has also made a role on the genre in Australia winning awards at the Urban Music Awards Australia and New Zealand for the Best Male Artists and Best R&B R&B album. Recently Sebastian released “like it like that” and it became the highest selling Australian artist single in 2009 and charted at number one for two consecutive weeks.

In the year 2004, Australian Idol finalist Paulini’s introduced “single Angle Eyes” and album one “determined heart” both reached number one on the ARIA charts and were certified platinum. Paulini received ARIA number one chart award for both the single and album. Her second album “Superwoman” included the singles rough day and so over you, and earned Paulini two nominations at the 2007 Urban Music Award for Best R&B album and Best female artist.

Australian Idol runner-up for 2006, Jessica Mauboy made her musical solo in 2008 with the single running back, which she featured an American rapper Flo Rida, and placed at number three on the ARIA single chart before being certified double platinum. Her first album been has earned her seven nominations at the 2009 ARIA music awards, winning the awards of highest selling single for running back. Also, Mauboy has continued to enjoy success with the single such as burn, Saturday night which feature Ludacris and Inescapable.

Most of the R&B and Pop singer Cody Simpson has achieved international approval and has been compared to the likes of Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. Sampson’s music charted all over the world. Other singers in the R&B/ soul genre include Jade Macrae, Isreal Cruz, Stan Walker and Ricki- Lee Coulter, who tested with R&B for her first two albums - Ricki-Lee 2005 and Brand new day 2007.