Black Music Sunday: Valentine's Day is around the corner. What's your favorite love song?

It’s Super Bowl Sunday—which we have covered here at “Black Music Sunday” in the past—but with Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, we’re going to get into love song mode.

R&B and soul artists have been singing about love since the genre took hold in the 1940s, and they’re still going strong today. Usher headlining the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show is a testimony to that. He’s also paying tribute to R&B artists of the past.

But let’s not forget rocker Tracy Chapman, who got her flowers onstage at the Grammys last week for her duet with Luke Combs. “Fast Car” is a heartbreaking, visceral ballad, but Chapman has also written some powerful love songs.

With thousands of love songs to choose from, I won’t be able to include them all, so check out some past Valentine’s Day selections: In 2022, we featured Houston Person, Etta Jones, Etta James, Ben Webster, and Johnny Hartman with John Coltrane. And in 2021, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Arthur Prysock, Nat and Natalie Cole, Miles Davis, and Ben Webster sung their hearts out for us. 

Truthfully, I could probably write a music story every day and never scratch the surface of the plethora of songs about love.

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music with nearly 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.