April 7, 2014

The Best R&B Group You’ve Never Heard Of


The “5” Royales
Soul & Swagger: The Complete “5” Royales 1951-1967
RockBeat
 

the 5 royales soul and swagger

Their songs were covered by everybody from James Brown and Ray Charles to Mick Jagger and the Mamas and Papas. Steve Cropper, the renowned Booker T and the MG’s guitarist, recorded a tribute album celebrating the group, recruiting the likes of Steve Winwood and Sharon Jones to sing. Though highly regarded by R&B connoisseurs, the “5” Royales have never received the widespread acclaim their hardcore fans believe they deserve, but a new collection intends to change that. Packed with raucous uptempo stompers and spine-tingling ballads, the essential five-disc, 141-track set Soul & Swagger makes a persuasive case for the Winston-Salem, NC group’s greatness. The key ingredients in the Royales’ sound were the pleading, gospel-tinged tenor vocals of Johnny Tanner and the stinging, bluesy guitar of Lowman Pauling, and while “Dedicated to the One I Love” or “Think” might be the initial standouts, there are dozens of other equally exciting tracks here. Check out “Monkey Hips and Rice,” “Catch That Teardrop” or “The Slummer the Slum” and prepare to be converted. Resistance is futile!

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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