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The Best of Blue-Eyed Soul Vol. 1: Male Vocalists

One hundred tracks by white men singing Black American music. The category is loaded, and the records are mostly excellent.

Blue-eyed soul, and what the term is doing

The phrase dates to the mid-1960s, when Black radio stations used it to describe white acts — the Righteous Brothers among the first — whose records they were willing to play. It was a marketing term before it was a genre, and it has always carried an implicit question: who is allowed in, and who decides.

The honest answer is that the audience decides. Some of the artists here were fully accepted by Black radio and Black listeners; others were not, and a few had careers that depended on access their Black contemporaries were denied. Both things are true simultaneously and are worth holding while you listen.

What is not in dispute is that a great many of these records are genuinely good.

What to listen for

Bobby Caldwell's "Coming Down from Love" is the emblematic case — his label hid his photograph so Black radio would play him, and it worked completely.

Hall & Oates' "One On One" and Michael McDonald's "Hey Girl" are the two most musically substantial entries. McDonald's voice is the more remarkable instrument, and his work with the Doobie Brothers and as a guest vocalist is enormous.

Jon B. appears twice and is the 1990s case study — signed to Babyface's operation, and accepted on the strength of the records.

George Michael's "Jesus to a Child" is the most emotionally exposed thing here — written after the death of his partner Anselmo Feleppa — and Michael was, by common consent among his peers, one of the finest singers of his generation.

Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" and Steve Perry's "Foolish Heart" are the anthemic ones.

Mac Ayres' "Waiting" opens the set and represents the current generation — a bedroom-produced artist working entirely in the neo-soul idiom.

Andy Gibb's "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" is the deep cut, and Human Nature's a cappella Smokey Robinson is the Australian curiosity.

Go deeper

Teena Marie is the essential counter-reference and is not on this list because it is male-only. She was signed to Motown, mentored by Rick James, and remains the most completely accepted white artist in the history of Black American music.

Michael McDonald's Motown covers albums are surprisingly good, and George Michael's Older is the album of his that most rewards revisiting.

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