There was a time, not long ago, when the term "soul music" was
verboten on commercial radio. In the mid-'80s, then-popular local R&B
FM station KSOL dropped its "K-Soul" IDs and forbade announcers to
say the word on the air. Billboard magazine, the record industry
bible, called its charts for African American popular music "soul"
from 1969 to 1982, then switched the designation to "black" before
settling in 1990 on "R&B," a short form of the tag "rhythm and blues"
coined in 1949 by Billboard staff writer Jerry Wexler.

Soul -- a style influenced by African American gospel music that was
pioneered in the late 1950s by such performers as Ray Charles and Sam
Cooke - - refuses to go away, however. It continues to be felt in the
music of contemporary R&B singers like Usher and Alicia Keys, whose
songs are heard alongside hip-hop hits on youth-oriented "urban"
stations, including KMEL in San Francisco.

And radio programmers have created the term "neo-soul" for the music
of vocalists such as Jill Scott and Angie Stone, whose current R&B is
more deeply rooted in classic, or "old-school," soul.

Stone, who performs Monday afternoon as part of the eighth annual
KBLX Stone Soul Picnic at Cal State East Bay's new Pioneer
Amphitheatre, doesn't care for the neo-soul tag.

"There's nothing new about soul music other than the parties who are
chosen to take on the legacy of keeping the music alive," Stone
says. "I do get played every now and then (on urban radio), but I may
not get played as much because they want to throw me in that 'neo'
bag."

Stone made her recording debut in 1979 with the hit "Funk You Up"
with the Sequence, a trio of teenage women from Columbia, S.C., whose
mix of rapping and singing predated that of TLC by a dozen years.
She's been straddling the line between soul and hip-hop ever since.
After re-emerging as a solo singer six years ago, Stone has featured
such guest rappers as Eve and Snoop Dogg on her albums. Still, she
hasn't gotten as much play from urban stations as she'd like.

"They've made hip-hop pop," she complains. "They found a way to
appeal to the children, and the parents spend the money to buy the
records. That's great from a commercial standpoint, but what is bad
about it is they're not getting the grit and grime of what real, real
soul music is about."

Stone and other contemporary soul artists have found a welcome mat at
so- called adult contemporary stations such as San Francisco's KBLX
that mix current music with R&B oldies from the '70s onward.

"She has very much what audiences today consider an old-school
approach," KBLX program director and early morning weekday DJ Kevin
Brown says of Stone. The FM station dubs its music format "smooth
R&B" and doesn't use the term "soul," except for veteran Bay Area DJ
Bob Jones' weekly "Classic Soul Sunday" oldies program.

Stone doesn't tell her age. Neither does Ledisi, a former Oakland
resident now living in New York whose self-released 2000 debut
CD "Soulsinger" didn't get played on KBLX -- Brown says he was
unaware of it -- though her recording of "My Sensitivity (Gets in the
Way)" from the various-artists Luther Vandross salute album "Forever,
for Always, for Luther" on GRP Records has been getting major spins
from the station since its release last summer.

Teena Marie, headliner of this year's KBLX Memorial Day concert,
isn't shy about giving her age -- she's 49 -- though she says it has
served to keep her recent recordings off urban radio. The Santa
Monica-born singer, songwriter and producer scored a string of R&B
hit singles from 1979 to 1981, including "I'm a Sucker for Your
Love," "Square Biz," "Lovergirl" and "Ooo La La La," many of which
crossed over to the pop charts. Her current CD, "La Dona" on the Cash
Money Classics label, has sold more than 450,000 copies since its
release a year ago, in great degree because of play on adult
contemporary radio stations.

"Crossover used to mean black to white," says Teena Marie, the most
successful white soul singer in the history of R&B. "Now crossover is
adult contemporary to the younger stations. Some of them played 'La
Dona,' but the majority of them play rap music now. I was just
nominated for a Grammy in the same category as Alicia Keys, Angie
Stone, Jill Scott and Janet Jackson, but a lot of the radio stations
were telling the record company, 'Oh, she doesn't fit our demographic
because of her age.' "

The Whispers, a soul vocal quartet fronted by Wallace "Scotty" Scott
and his identical twin, Walter, are the senior act at the KBLX Stone
Soul Picnic. They cut their first record in Los Angeles in 1963 and
relocated to the Bay Area three years later after the success of an
engagement at a San Francisco club called Little Bo Peep's that had
been booked by then-KDIA disc jockey Sly Stone. After hitting the big
time -- topping the Billboard R&B chart in 1980 with "And the Beat
Goes On" and again in 1987 with "Rock Steady" -- they moved back to
Southern California. The group, whose oldies are staples of adult
contemporary radio, is planning to release an album this summer. It
will be the Whispers' first recording in eight years, but they're not
much concerned about urban radio play.

"Radio now considers us almost dinosaurs," Scotty says. "We probably
work more now that we did in our heyday because there's an old-school
station like KBLX in every major city around the country. Our
demographic is anywhere from 30 years old to 65 or 70. Our attitude
is that if there are some young people who like our stuff and want to
buy it, by all means, please. But that's not who we're shooting for.
We're going for the people who have supported us all these years."