I got an email from a friend the other day asking me for my definition of “old rhythm and blues music”. My first response was a list of adjectives: gritty, soulful, emotional, heavily gospel influenced, danceable, raw, primitive, er, um, rhythmic and bluesy? But that night I came across a better description in a book by Dan Kennedy titled Rock On and sent that paragraph along to my friend.

“Another faded and yellowed snapshot: the Four Tops driving a big American steel convertible in Detroit, huge humble grins, suits and shades and hearts, a moment that hits you so hard you’re standing there realizing you’ve never really tried. Look at those guys! They will play what they play because it’s in their blood and they will play it whether or not the world showers them with millions. Has nothing to do with whether or not they make the money, score the award, grab a shoe endorsement and a video game tie-in, or get a reality show made about them. They look at the camera like they are going to do what they do and if you want to catch the ride, great, and if you don’t, what’s that got to do with what they’re doing? They sure as hell aren’t gonna switch up their sound based on focus group research or chasing a bigger audience or check. Here are pictures from a time when singing soul meant you had some.”

What I love about that paragraph is that it doesn’t even begin to try to describe the music itself but it so perfectly captures the attitude that it tells you all you need to know.

(Incidentally, I highly recommend Rock On, an extremely funny first-person account of working for a major record company when the bottom was dropping out of the music business. And if this sort of thing interests you, you have to get your hands on Exploding by Stan Cornyn, a key executive at Warner Records for more than 30 years. Oh, there’s also Walter Yetnikoff’s Howling at the Moon and Fredric Dannen’s Hit Men and – oops, I’m veering off course here.)

Really, anyone singing and playing soul music in the ’40s and ’50s was doing it for love, not money. Anytime anyone came somewhere close to a hit, some bigger record company would trot out Pat Boone to do some lame-ass mellow cover version, knocking the grittier original version off the airwaves.

That all changed in the ’60s, with the triple powerhouses of Motown, Atlantic and Stax/Volt. There was an almost unprecedented explosion of talent – Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Smokey Robinson, Sam & Dave, George Clinton, Diana Ross, James Brown, Isaac Hayes, Sam Cooke, Booker T – I could fill out an entire column just listing the names and there’d be enough left over for next issue. These were giants and there were so many of them at the same time that the planet trembled (or, more properly, rocked) with each new release.

But by the mid-’70s, all of this had disappeared, at least from the sales charts, replaced by disco, rap and hip-hop. Soul music became little more than a sampling graveyard looted by hip-hop producers unable to come up with hooks on their own. For years, it seemed like the only thing approaching a commercially successful soul record were the bits of excrement being dropped onto an unsuspecting public by Michael Bolton.

And yet, like everything else, good soul music never completely went away. As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of a mini-revival at the moment, spearheaded by the success of Amy ‘Wino’ Winehouse and Duffy. The number of interesting artists making at least halfway decent records seems to be on the rise.

In case you missed it, last year 52-year-old Sharon Jones and her band, the Dap-Kings, had something of a commercial breakthrough with their well-received album 100 Days, 100 Nights. I loved her voice and the band was tight but I didn’t think the songs were strong enough. For me, the killer soul album last year was Scene of the Crime by veteran Bettye Lavette. A great voice, strong songs and it didn’t hurt that her back-up band on the album was southern rock fave Drive-By Truckers. The album hits a groove from the very first note and when she starts off singing, “I’ve been this way too long to change now,” the only possible reaction is, “Please Bettye, don’t ever change, keep on doing what you’re doing.”

If 2007 was good for soul music, 2008 is shaping up to be great. Al Green is one of those guys who can sing the phone book and make you cry. But his new album, Lay It Down, produced by ?uestlove of The Roots, effortlessly recaptures the sound and feeling of his ’70’s classics.

This year has also seen a promising debut release from the oddly named Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed and The True Loves. This Boston band has clearly been studying the right records and they play with an intensity that matches Reed’s strong voice. It’s a good record but I get the feeling that they’re much better live – actually I just found the video of an entire Reed club show streaming at fabchannel.com and, yeah, live they’re the real deal. I’m hoping for stronger material on future releases.

But if you were just going to get one record, the one I’d recommend would be The Hard Way, James Hunter’s latest release. And it’s not just because everyone I’ve played this for is convinced it is some classic ’60s soul they somehow missed rather than a new album from a British white guy. It’s because James Hunter has it all – he sings like Sam Cooke, knows his way around a guitar, remembers to include the hooks in all the songs he writes and even seems at home with the one or two reggae tracks he tosses onto each of his albums. Hunter was discovered by Van Morrison and toured and recorded with him in the ’90s. Morrison returned the favour by guesting on some of Hunter’s previous albums. For The Hard Way, Hunter’s fourth album, the legendary Allen Toussaint is on board. The whole album is currently streaming at jameshuntermusic.com so you have no excuse not to at least check it out.

Last but a very long way from least, one of the most essential reissues of the past several months is the deluxe edition of Otis Redding’s classic, Otis Blue: Otis Sings Soul. This is the one in which one of the greatest singers of all time did covers of some of his all-time favourites along with one of his greatest original songs, Respect. You get both the mono and stereo mixes on the album as well as some powerhouse live versions. And if someone should happen to ask you for a definition of soul music, just dig this out, sit them down, and play it loud. I think it will answer all their questions.