"I Never Loved A Man" (Aretha Franklin)

"I Never Loved A Man" (1967).  
This song is soul.
Story goes, Jerry Wexler (A&R man extraordinaire for Atlantic Records) decided that his newest artist Aretha Franklin needed to record at Rick Hall's Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Franklin had recorded a number of easy listening singles (can you imagine The Queen of Soul doing anything easy listening?) with Columbia Records, and the records simply didn't sell.  So, Wexler reasoned that putting her in a funkier, bluesier setting with Hall's house band, "The Swampers," would help her tap into her gospel roots.  The hope was she'd strike the same kind of gold that Wilson Pickett had at Fame.
Wexler's hunch was right.  
But the process wasn't easy.
Franklin was understandably apprehensive about heading into the heart of racially-charged 1960s Alabama to record.  In Greg "Freddy" Camalier's 2013 documentary Muscle Shoals, musician/songwriter Dan Penn, who was hanging out during the session and also helped write the single's B-side "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," recounts the sense of tension and awkwardness in the studio, with Franklin and the band trying (and failing) to "find the groove."  
Says Penn about the session, "There was all of these gears working, but it suddenly came to a (halt).  And it was really quiet.  They had a song, they had an artist, but nobody knew what to do."
(I mean, picture being Franklin and walking into a studio in the middle of rural Alabama.  There are a bunch of young, white dudes sitting around who are supposed to be the key to your new funkier sound, not to mention your second—maybe last—chance at a recording career, and nothing is gelling.  She had to have wondered what the hell she was doing there.)
Out of the blue, keyboardist Spooner Oldham came up with the Wurlitzer keyboard riff that opens the track, and everything else suddenly fell into place: Roger Hawkins's slinky 9/8 drum groove, Tommy Cogbill's greasy bassline, Franklin's churchy piano...
"Aretha jumped right on it.  (The single) was cut within 15 or 20 minutes."
It was her first #1 R&B hit.

"Respect Yourself" (The Staple Singers)

The Staple Singers started out in the late 1940s as a gospel group consisting of siblings Mavis, Cleotha, Pervis, and Yvonne Staples, led by their guitarist father, Roebuck "Pops" Staples.  Through the years, their repertoire expanded from gospel standards to organic R&B with a social conscience.
A key example is the sublimely funky "Respect Yourself" from their 1972 Stax album Be Altitude: Respect Yourself.  
The message of the song is reason enough to love it: getting respect means earning respect, and that starts with self respect.  
But the cherry on this sundae is that the track was recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL, with the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  
Who was the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, you ask?  They're only some of the best session musicians (next to The Funk Brothers and The Wrecking Crew) to ever put sound on tape.  They basically were a bunch of white dudes from rural Alabama with amazing chops and a love of early rock and soul music.  They ended up backing the likes of Aretha Franklin ("I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You"), Wilson Pickett ("Land of 1000 Dances"), and Etta James ("Tell Mama") at a tiny recording studio in the middle of nowhere.
So think about this: not only did a family gospel band (whose leader was pushing 60 at the time of the recording) score a Top 5 hit with this chunk of funk, they did it recording in the middle of Alabama in 1972.  With a band of white country boys.  
It gives me chills thinking about how, in the middle of a state that was a powder keg of racial tension at a time when younger and older generations were finding little middle ground when it came to culture or ideologies, you not only had black and white musicians making soul-stirring music together, but you also had multiple generations working together.   I think that's pretty noteworthy.