[7][8][1] Due to his minimal chart success in comparison to other soul music greats such as James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, Burke has been described as the genre's "most unfairly overlooked singer" of its golden age.

[11] Burke was "a singer whose smooth, powerful articulation and mingling of sacred and profane themes helped define soul music in the early 1960s.

[19] Burke was born James Solomon McDonald[20] on March 21, 1940[21] (sometimes listed as 1936[22] or 1939[23]) in the upper floor of his grandmother Eleanor Moore's home,[22] a row house in West Philadelphia.

[27][28] Burke was consecrated a bishop at birth by his grandmother in the Solomon's Temple, a congregation of the United House of Prayer for All People, which she founded at her home in Black Bottom, West Philadelphia.

[35] Burke became a pastor of the congregation at the age of 12, appeared on the radio station WDAS,[36][37] and later hosted a gospel show on WHAT-AM, mixing songs and sermons in broadcasts from Solomon's Temple.

"[1] Another briefly held early job was as a hot dog seller at Eddie's Meat Market, where his friend Ernest Evans, later known as Chubby Checker, also worked.

[15] Burke signed with Apollo Records in late 1955, following the departure of gospel singer and the label's primary star Mahalia Jackson to Columbia.

[citation needed] Burke gained some notoriety for the Apollo single, "You Can Run (But You Can't Hide)", which he wrote with Charles Merenstein.

[76] In 1959, Philadelphia businessman Marvin Leonard "Babe" Chivian (1925-1972), a "body-and-fender man"[45] and real estate speculator,[77] offered Burke a red Lincoln Continental convertible if he would agree to a management contract with him.

[82][83] At the time of Burke's signing, two of Atlantic Records' major stars, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles, had left the label for better deals with Capitol and ABC respectively.

[22][69] According to Alex Halberstadt, "Salvation arrived in the person of Solomon Burke, a soul singer of overwhelming charisma and remarkable stylistic range.

... Wexler and Burke created a string of hits that carried the label financially and represented the first fully realized examples of the classic soul sound.

"[106] Wexler, who considered Burke to be "the greatest male soul singer of all time",[10] pronounced him a "vocalist of rare prowess and remarkable range.

[114] According to Gerri Hirshey: "Title agreed upon, Solomon added the trappings: a crown, a scepter, a cape, robe, dancing girls, and colored lights.

[115] Burke, whose shows were tours de force of riveting soul and unashamed hokum", "ticked every box from low comedy through country pleading to the kind of magisterial rock'n'roll that brought the house down",[116] and he "became known as much for his showmanship as he did his voice.

"[15] Cliff White described a show in the UK where "with head thrown back and one hand cupped to his mouth like an Alpine yodeller he cried out with such overwhelming passion that he left the spellbound audience wrung out and exhausted like so many limp rags.

[92] Due to failing chart numbers and the rise of several performers including Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, Burke was described by David Cantwell in this period as "a King without a kingdom".

[82] Burke tried to regain his early Atlantic success by recording at Memphis, working on the album I Wish I Knew at Chips Moman's American Sound Studio.

[120] The album included the songs "Get Out of My Life Woman" and a cover of "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", his first recording that provided social commentary.

After this album and the two following singles—his own "Generation of Revelations", and the Mac Davis song "In the Ghetto", which had previously been a hit for Elvis Presley—failed to chart, his contract was not renewed.

[132] He was nominated for his first Grammy in the Best Male Gospel Soul category for his rendition of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand",[15][133] but complained later that he did not receive royalties from his Savoy work.

Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 19, 2001, in New York City by Mary J. Blige, after eight previous nominations since 1986.

Many of the songs were previously unreleased tunes, some written for him by top writers including Tom Waits, with whom he had a discussion over whether to sing about a mint julep, which was against Solomon's principles at the time.

She is a studio artist for groups Billy Preston, Peacock (Anna Gayle group), and Leslie Uggams, and toured with Chaka Khan, and wrote and produced Trouble Don't Last Play and LP with Family, & Friends[clarification needed], a 14-song original soundtrack, which was released in 2003, she opened for Jocelyn Brown, Jaheim, Norman Connors, and Angela Bofill, as well as for her father at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia in 2006.

[162] Her son is Novel,[167] who released his first studio album The Audiobiography in October 2008,[168] and wrote movie soundtracks for Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Step Up, and 21.

Rapper Raeneal T. Quann (known as Q-Don) (born about 1978), who was accidentally shot and killed by robbers on April 26, 2000, outside the Club Evolution in Philadelphia, was also a grandson of Burke.

[172] New York Times writer Ben Sisario wrote of Burke: "Wide-shaped in his youth, he grew into Henry VIII-like corpulence, and in his later years had to be wheeled to his throne.

On October 21 a wake and meditation service was held at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Griffin Mortuary at Westlake Village.

It was simulcast on the internet and at a memorial service held at the Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia,[177] that was led by Minister Lester Fields and Solomon's younger sister, Apostle Laurena Burke Corbin,[178] the pastor of Our First Temple of Faith Mt.

[178] Joe Henry described the funeral, which was "2 and a half hours long, included many eulogies, some spontaneous gospel singing; some shouting, some wailing, a fainting, and a daughter who hopped on the balls of her feet and spoke in tongues as punctuation to her scripted remarks.