10 Greatest Songs About Other Musicians

A slightly different example here.

In 1967, soul artist Arthur Conley decided to release a track for soul music fans all about how great soul music is. “Sweet Soul Music” may be preaching to the converted; luckily, it’s a hot tune with a great vocal in its own right, which has entered the canon of genre classics (albeit on the second or third tier).

The tune, co-written by bona fide legend Otis Redding, kicks off with a killer horn hook before Conley begins proceedings with the important question “Do you like good music?” This proves to be rhetorical, and Conley goes on to namecheck several of his contemporaries, including Lou Rawls and Sam & Dave (Redding himself gets a mention - hopefully that line was written by Conley).

One wonders what Conley’s contemporaries thought of being shouted out in the hit track, but possible toadying aside, “Sweet Soul Music” is a banger that barely scratches the surface of the era’s incredible artists, but if there’s any music that deserves contemporaneous self-mythologising, it’s the 1960s soul scene.