70s Soul Music: The Artists Who Redefined a Genre

By Charlie · Published July 29, 2026 · Updated October 6, 2026

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70s soul music picked up where Motown's tightly controlled hit machine left off.

It pushed the genre somewhere far more personal.

Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder led the way.

They used their newfound creative freedom to write about the world instead of just romance.

From there, the decade split into a dozen different directions at once.

• Lush Philadelphia orchestration
• Darker, funk-driven introspection
• Cinematic soundtrack work
• The eventual sparkle of disco

This is a look at the artists and records that shaped 70s soul music.

It's one of the richest stretches in the genre's history.

The songs and movements that shaped 70s soul music.

70s Soul Music: Play the Songs

Here are 184 songs from this site's chart data that are tagged soul, from 1970 to 1979.

Press Play on any row to watch that song here, tap a heading to sort, and look at #1 Hit for weekly chart-toppers.

Year-End Rank is the song's spot on that year's Billboard Year-End Hot 100.

The #1 Hit column marks songs that also reached number one on the weekly Hot 100.

Beyond the Year-End List: 70s Soul Music Hits the Top 100 Left Out

The Year-End Hot 100 keeps only each year's 100 biggest songs.

Plenty of weekly Hot 100 hits never made it onto that list, including these 10 picks for 70s soul music.

None is on any 1970 to 1979 year-end top 100, and all 10 charted weekly.

Weekly Peak is each song's best spot on the weekly Billboard Hot 100.

Each peak comes from the song's own linked Wikipedia article.

None of these songs is ranked on a year-end list, so the table shows no Year-End Rank.

What Is 70s Soul Music?

Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder Broke Free From Motown

By the 70s, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder had spent most of the previous decade inside Motown.

That system was famous for its tight creative control.

Once that grip loosened, both artists used the moment to push soul music into more ambitious, more personal territory.

Gaye and Wonder: Two Sets of Freedom

Gaye's work covered remarkable range in this era.

• "What's Going On": confronted war, poverty, and political unrest directly.
• "Let's Get It On": turned toward something far more intimate.
• "Got to Give It Up": proved he could fill a dancefloor too.

Wonder covered similarly wide ground, from the jazz-influenced tribute "Sir Duke" to the deeply autobiographical "I Wish."

Together, they set the tone for the rest of the decade.

Soul music could be socially conscious and deeply personal, yet still built for the radio.

Both artists proved a hit record and a real message weren't mutually exclusive.

Marvin Gaye performing at the Forum in Inglewood, California, May 20, 1974.

Image credit: Photo by Los Angeles Times / UCLA Library, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Curious which other 70s soul acts you'd land on next?

Our Random Artist Picker pulls a new one every time.

What Is Going On Did for Gaye

Gaye's album What's Going On came out on May 21, 1971.

It was the first Gaye album to credit him as its producer.

Motown boss Berry Gordy was reluctant to release the title song at first.

Gordy worried that a political song would cost Gaye his crossover audience.

The title track still reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff Built the Philly Soul Sound

Gaye and Wonder expanded what soul music could say.

Songwriters and producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff expanded what it could sound like.

Known as the architects of Philly soul, the pair built lush, string-laden arrangements.

Those arrangements sat over grooves that never lost their pull on the dancefloor.

That sound found its clearest statement in "TSOP," short for "The Sound of Philadelphia."

The instrumental, performed by the studio group MFSB, ended up defining an entire regional movement.

Philly soul's influence reached far beyond any single artist.

It shaped the production style that countless soul and disco records borrowed from.

That influence lasted the rest of the decade.

TSOP and Soul Train

MFSB charted with TSOP in 1974.

Gamble and Huff wrote and produced the track.

It became the theme for the TV show Soul Train.

The core rhythm section was bassist Ronald Baker, guitarist Norman Harris and drummer Earl Young.

The lush, orchestral approach would even shape disco's string-heavy sound later on.

Soul Turned Inward: Sly & The Family Stone and The Temptations

Not every direction 70s soul music took was upbeat.

Sly & The Family Stone's "Family Affair" traded the band's earlier brightness for a moody, minimalist groove.

That shift signaled a darker, more introspective turn for the genre.

The Temptations went through a similar shift.

They moved from Motown-era pop structure into psychedelic soul territory.

Tracks like "Ball of Confusion" and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" both opened with long, dramatic intros.

Those intros mirrored the chaos of the era.

Both records still found major commercial success despite their heavier subject matter.

That willingness to sit in discomfort, rather than resolve it quickly, stands out.

It's part of what makes this stretch of 70s soul music still feel vivid decades later.

Cinematic Funk and a Teenage Voice

Isaac Hayes took soul in a different direction entirely with "Theme from Shaft."

He brought a cinematic, funk-driven sound to film scoring.

The track set a new standard for what Black cool could sound like on screen.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a 14-year-old Michael Jackson delivered something unexpected.

His vocal on the tender ballad "Ben" showed startling emotional maturity for his age.

That range, from Hayes' sweeping orchestral funk to a teenager singing with real emotional depth, is striking.

It shows just how much room 70s soul music made for completely different kinds of artistry.

The Best 70s Soul Songs, by the Charts

"Best" is a matter of taste, so this page lets the Billboard charts make the call.

Of the 184 songs in the list at the top, 35 also reached number one on the weekly Hot 100.

The table counts them by year.

70s soul music was strongest on the charts at the start of the decade.

The 1970 to 1974 lists hold 127 of the 184 songs.

The count falls to just 5 by 1979, in a year the site's data tags 34 songs as disco.

The Longest Soul Runs at Number One

Four soul songs in the list stayed at number one the longest, by weekly Hot 100 weeks:

• The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face: Roberta Flack, 6 weeks, and the top song on the 1972 Year-End list.
• Killing Me Softly with His Song: Roberta Flack, 5 weeks, in 1973.
• I'll Be There: The Jackson 5, 5 weeks, in 1970.
• Reunited: Peaches & Herb, 4 weeks, in 1979.

The Jackson 5 Open the Decade

The weekly chart data shows four Jackson 5 songs reaching number one in 1970.

They are I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save and I'll Be There.

No other act in the soul list has that many number ones in a single year.

The Biggest 70s Soul Artists

The list of 70s soul music holds songs from 113 different acts.

These eight have the most songs in it.

Duets and group credits count as separate acts, so a song by The Spinners with Dionne Warwick is not counted under The Spinners.

Al Green performing on The Mike Douglas Show, February 25, 1973.

Image credit: Photo courtesy of the Mike Douglas Show, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Al Green, shown here in 1973, is one of the six-song acts in the list.

Soul on the Album Charts

Singles tell only half the story of 70s soul music.

The decade's biggest soul statements were albums, and Billboard tracked them on a separate soul albums chart.

Stevie Wonder in a Los Angeles recording studio, August 1975.

Image credit: Photo via UCLA Digital Library, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Songs in the Key of Life was a double album with a bonus four-song EP.

It debuted at number one and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Two of its singles topped the Hot 100 as well.

• I Wish: one week at number one on the Hot 100 and five on the R&B chart.
• Sir Duke: three weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and one on the R&B chart.

70s Soul Music's Disco Turn

By the middle of the decade, soul's grooves had started accelerating into something new.

• Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" became one of the first singles ever to be certified platinum.
• Donna Summer pushed disco into bolder territory, adding rock guitar to "Hot Stuff" and daring sensuality to "Love to Love You Baby," earning her the title Queen of Disco.
• Chic's "Good Times" paired Nile Rodgers' guitar work with Bernard Edwards' bassline, a combination that went on to directly shape the sound of early hip-hop.

70s soul music never stopped evolving, right through to its disco period.

That final stretch of the decade shows how directly disco grew out of soul and funk.

It didn't appear out of nowhere.

The dancefloor sound of the late 70s was still soul music at its core.

It was just sped up for the club.

Where Soul Went Next: Quiet Storm

Disco and funk had the hits as the decade closed.

70s soul music answered with a gentler direction called quiet storm.

It favored relaxed tempos and soft melodies.

The sound drew on fusion and adult contemporary, and it carried soul into the 1980s.

Want to hear how these tracks stack up against other decade favorites?

Our Random 70s Song Generator pulls a new one with every spin.

For a wider look at where rock was headed at the same time, see our 70s Rock retrospective.

More 70s Soul and Neighboring Sounds

Soul never stayed in its own lane, so these pages pick up where this guide to 70s soul music stops.

• 70s funk shares soul's roots and its biggest crossover names.
• 70s disco music is where the dance floor took soul's grooves.
• James Brown built the funk side of the story.
• Donna Summer carried soul vocals into disco.
• 70s number one hits lists every weekly chart-topper of the decade.
• 70s female singers covers Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and more.

Sources

The chart counts come from this site's own Billboard data, described on the methodology page.

The historical details were checked against these outside sources:

• Wikipedia: Soul music for the genre's roots, Motown's 1970s role and quiet storm.
• Wikipedia: Philadelphia soul for Gamble and Huff, MFSB and TSOP.
• Wikipedia: What's Going On for the release date, production credit and chart runs.
• Wikipedia: Songs in the Key of Life for the release date, chart runs and Grammy win.

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