Soul

Hank Mobley and Lou Donaldson cut the first dated credits in 1953, their sessions captured by engineer Rudy Van Gelder and underwritten by Blue Note founder Alfred Lion, with drummer Art Blakey and bassist Paul Chambers binding those dates together. By 1957 that same circle carried forward into Herbie Mann and Bobby Timmons, where drummers "Philly" Joe Jones and Art Taylor, reedman Jerome Richardson, and bassist Wendell Marshall recur as the connective tissue holding the early spine in place. From there the baton passes outward and forward — to Smokey Robinson in 1963, Henry Franklin in 1967, and Maceo Parker in 1969, then Pat Lewis in 1970, Larry Graham in 1973, and William DeVaughn in 1974. The line bends again in the next decade through Tony Hadley in 1981 and Culture Club in 1982, before circling back into deep soul with Angie Stone and Marvin Tarplin in 1995. Pharrell Williams picks it up in 1999, Dwele in 2001, and Adam Levine in 2004 — each credit a real hand-off, the same chain that began