CHANNELING THE SOUL OF THAT SWEET SOUL MUSIC

They say they just don’t write songs like they used to. Ya wanna bet? Stick your ears into our revival of that still-echoing soul-song era, and listen to “Soul Salvation.”

“Soul Salvation” is our tribute to those great bluer-than-blues soul songs and the soul greats who didn’t just sing them, they performed them. I’m talking about those visceral, gut-wrenching, bare-naked anthems to both ecstatic joy and painful, crushing heartache. I’m talking about those songs that broke sound barriers in the 60s and 70s and threw your ass on the therapist’s couch with each listen, leaving you ruminating in a puddle of feels.

I’m talking about performers like Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Same Cooke, Percy Sledge, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Jackie Wilson, Janis Joplin, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, The Righteous Brothers, Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, Bonnie Bramlett, and others.

In my opinion, among the greatest of the soul greats was the man who wrote “Try a Little Tenderness,” ”These Arms of Mine,” the original version of “Respect,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “I’ve got Dreams to Remember,” ”I Can’t Turn You Loose,” ”Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa,” “Mr. Pitiful,” “Sweet Soul Music,” and “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” which was the first posthumous #1 single in U.S. history.

The man’s name was Otis Redding.

I wrote “Soul Salvation” as a tribute to those great soul songs that sound-tracked my youth, but during the song’s production, the very soul of Otis Redding seemed to well up through the speakers and headphones to take over and just wwwail, as if it were saying, “Step aside white boys; let me show you how it’s done. Here, hold my beer.”

Unfortunately, Otis Redding tragically left the building when he was only 26 years old. How many more great songs might he have written? We’ll never know.

What I do know is that the singer in “Soul Salvation” is on the verge of one of those “You may get better, but you’ll never get well” breakups, emphasis on “break,” as in break your heart, break your mind, break your soul, and just break down and cry. Most of us have been there, probably more times than we want to remember, and that’s why we carry around our invisible emotional shields. (If you refuse to feel, you can’t get hurt, right? Yeah, rrright.)

I can personally tell you that this song has been thoroughly tested for slow-dance and get-your-butt-in-it groove-ability — on my own kitchen floor. (I hope the neighbors enjoyed the show if they were watching through the windows.) I conducted this astute research in the same house I wrote the song, musically composed it, and first played, sang and recorded it.

I hope this song touches you as much as it’s touched us while we were producing it. Crank it up and listen to it on a good system, or ear buds, or headphones, and see if we did Otis and “that sweet soul music” proud with our own soul powerhouse of a tune I respectfully named “Soul Salvation.”

Michael Ankelman
Lyrics were written in 2017 and first set to music in 2020 

Released June 15, 2026
Conceived, written and produced by Ankelman Sletten, directing AI and other digital production tools.