Marc Broussard

Blue-eyed soul music has got a new crown prince...and he's on a crusade.

"I want to take what was beautiful and right about old-school soul and make it alive again," says Marc Broussard, whose vibrant, upbeat new album S.O.S.: Save Our Soul was released on Vanguard Records.

"Soul music grew out of the church, out of gospel, but somewhere along the way it lost its heart. I want to give that heart - the good vibes, the happiness, the love - back to the music and back to the people, whether it's a new generation who've never heard what genuine soul sounds like or listeners who grew up on it."

On S.O.S.: Save Our Soul the youthful vocal dynamo from Carencro, Louisiana, masterfully breathes fire and passion into classic songs many listeners his age haven't even heard. Broussard plumbed the vaults of historic labels like Motown and Stax to create 11 performances that are sweltering and incendiary - and true. Marc and the band were adamant in their desire to do justice to the songs they chose by recreating their original sounds and arrangements as closely as possible.

"I wanted songs that had a positive spirit," he explains, "because there's too much negativity in this world. Years ago I made a promise to myself and to my family that I would always make music that comes from a positive and honest space." 

Broussard was born into a musical family, so his "ownership" goes back to his days as a boy hearing his father, Louisiana Hall of Fame guitarist Ted Broussard, (member of the legendary Gulf Coast blue eyed soul band The Boogie Kings) tear through soul nuggets with bands around suburban Carencro. And Marc was singing like the style's founders by the time he was in his teens.

"Years before I made my first album" - 2002's surprisingly mature Momentary Setback - "my uncle told me I needed to form my own music by using all of my influences along the way and combining them with my own perspective on life. 'Then,' he said, 'you'll have a great package to call your own.' I think I achieved that with Carencro. Now I've been touring behind that album nearly three years, and I want to share a new message. Not just that real soul music still has a place in our lives, but that we need to have more social consciousness. I don't want to lecture anybody about that. I want them to feel it through the positive vibes of this music."