The rarely mentioned significance of WQMG’s call letters says something about the Greensboro of yesteryear. After a week in the Gate City, I’m here to tell you that my article on Standing in the Shadows of Greensboro for next Thursday’s edition of Go Triad will give only a preliminary reading on the depth of Greensboro’s musical roots. Hopefully we’ll be able to offer plenty of supplemental information right here at Carolina Soul to help fill in the gaps.

The man pictured above is Curt Moore of Curt’s Records and Gifts, formerly of 2031 E. Market Street. Curt was a guiding light for this article. His pleasantly off-topic tales of characters like Jinxy Red and One-Armed Israel were a delightful diversion while traversing a half century of Greensboro history. Moore has a love and admiration for women that is unrivaled; his Wonderful World of Beautiful People and Miss Black Universe pageants provided a progressive resource for generations of young Black women. “See back in those days, the girls couldn’t go to the White pageants, so we gathered ideas,” explained Moore. “You know, why not give them scholarships? Why not try and create something empowering so they care about themselves? Nobody had ever tried it before, but it was pretty successful.”

“A Salute to Black Women,” released on Moore’s Tina imprint, was a ceremonious ballad that would play at each pageant’s closing. It’s pretty moving, and we’re offering it here to set the mood for a time-machine tour of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Walk proud,
Jon Kirby

Welcome everyone to the new Carolina Soul website. I first launched this website in the Fall of 2005, at which time it served only as a discography, listing 45-rpm soul records released in the Carolinas back in the day, as well as soul artists from the Carolinas and their records that came out on labels from other parts of the country. Thanks to collectors and musicians who have shared information plus dumb luck on my own part in trawling the internet and the real world, this reference has grown since the initial launch, and the process of discovery tells me that there’s more to come, and that the listings will continue to grow. Now, almost five years later, we are re-formatting the discography to make it more browsable, so stay tuned, and in the meantime, please keep viewing the old discography here.

I’m also happy to say that the Carolina Soul website now serves a second purpose, to share news, articles, interviews, media, mysteries, etc. of Carolina Soul via our new blog. Many thanks to my friend Jonathan Kirby for encouraging me to add this exciting feature, and for signing on as a partner in its maintenance. We hope that it will be a means for us to share our passion for this region and its musical output, and also a forum for you, the audience, to help us learn more. We will be delighted to hear from collectors, musicians, and fans who can shed light on the music and turn us on to new stuff. Please feel free to comment on our posts and/or email us about contributing through guest posts. Thanks.