Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.

My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.

It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,

but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.

And because the team is such a diverse

range of skills and strengths, we have trained journalists, people who love digging through

archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice. So if

you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories

from all around the UK.

Hi, I'm Keros Matthews. Thank you for downloading this special edition of Soul Music. I've been a fan of this series for such a long time and I was asked by BBC Radio for extra to make a mixtape of some of my favourite songs from the soul music back catalogue.

What a great job.

For anyone new to the programme, each episode takes a different piece of music and sets it as their backdrop to some incredibly moving personal stories.

So this is my curated selection from the past 25 series.

The whole playlist is three hours long and we've edited that into three sections.

So what you're about to hear is the first hour of my soul music mixtape.

Over the next three hours we're going to hear some standout songs and stories from all around the world.

But I want to start high above the Earth's surface and on the space shuttle, Endeavour, with a story from former astronaut Christopher Ferguson.

One particularly relevant image that I replay time and time again is taking a moment to turn all

the lights off inside the space shuttle. Let your eyes get dark adapted and stare at the earth

at night, especially if there's a moon backlighting it.

Sometimes there are aurora, kind of glowing lights on the horizon that you can see.

Sometimes there are thunderstorms, and you witness the lightning as popping on the ground.

...