R&B » Soul » Brown-Eyed Soul

Much like Britain's northern soul community, the Latino population of Southern California fell for soul music and initially imported many of its favorite songs, but the community also fostered a fertile base of artists by the mid-'60s. Unlike the sound of boogaloo/Latin soul (based in New York City), early brown-eyed soul owed little to traditional Latin music and was rarely performed in Spanish. Instead, rock bands like Cannibal & the Headhunters ("Land of 1000 Dances") and Thee Midniters -- inspired by '50s Latino rocker Ritchie Valens -- earned national recognition playing anthemic rock & roll with an R&B edge. Smooth Chicago soul and Motown hits were big crowd favorites at dances during the early '60s (alongside a rare local sensation like Brenton Wood). When the East L.A. community began gradually moving from energetic R&B to romantic soul, the results were some of the sweetest soul music heard during the late '60s and '70s. Another wing of the brown-eyed soul crowd was influenced by Chicano, the Latino civil-rights movement emphasizing heritage and cultural pride. As a result, bands like War, Malo, El Chicano, and Tierra followed Latin-rock breakout Santana into the nation's cultural consciousness. Brown-eyed soul anthems kept edging the charts during the mid-'70s (a good example being Bloodstone's "Natural High"), but rarely breached the national radar after 1980. Rhino Records' three-volume series Brown Eyed Soul: The Sound of East L.A. remains the definitive document of all the imported hits and homegrown talent associated with the style.