Steve Cropper - Dedicated: A Salute To The 5 Royales

Here's something from the modern realm, a great album of covers from guitar legend Steve Cropper.  This is a nice way to hear the songs of The 5 Royales, but we really need to get something original here at Chitlins.  In any case, this is far from a vanity project (in spite of the photo of him on the cover, and the 5 Royales on the inner fold out) - all of the artists including Cropper work to serve the tunes, and do an incredible job.

Dedicated gives us a great look into why The 5 Royales are legends.  The melodies are gorgeous and soulful.  Each song features a different vocal "guest" who works with Cropper, and the results are quite positive.  The tracks flow really well from tune to tune, as opposed to sounding like a patchwork.

I ripped this from a CD which I bought with no booklet.  However I did rip it in FLAC, and the sound is wonderful.  Enjoy!!

Steve Cropper has said in numerous interviews that his main influence as a guitarist was Lowman Pauling, chief songwriter, arranger, and axeman of North Carolina's 5 Royales, a '50s-era group that wedded doo wop, jump blues, gospel, and jazz in an R&B style that scored them numerous hits throughout the 1950s. The 5 Royales also featured lead vocalist Johnny Tanner (and occasionally younger brother Eugene) supported by backing singers Otto Jeffries, Jimmy Moore, and Obadiah Carter. Cropper was approached by producer Jon Tiven (who he'd previously worked with on the first of his two collaborations with Felix Cavaliere) about collaborating on a tribute album to The 5 Royales, and jumped at the chance. Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales, which represents the latest chapter in a late-career resurgence for Cropper, one of the most influential soul guitarists in history, combines the talents of a red hot studio band -- Cropper, bassist David Hood, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, percussionist Steve Ferrone, drummer Steve Jordan, and Neal Sugarman and Tiven on horns. In addition, Cropper and Tiven enlisted a stellar group of vocalists to perform 5 Royales standards: Lucinda Williams, Sharon Jones, Bettye LaVette, Delbert McClinton, Willie Jones, B.B. King, Shemekia Copeland, Buddy Miller, Dan Penn, Brian May, Steve Winwood, John Popper, and Dylan LeBlanc, fronting a great cast of backing singers. Despite the historic material and arrangements, Dedicated is a decidedly contemporary recording in production, saving it from the dubious fate of numerous other tribute albums that seek to re-create the actual vibe of original recordings. It begins with an excellent rendition of "Thirty Second Lover" featuring Winwood, but, fine as it is, it's a teaser for what's to come. LaVette and Willie Jones tear up "Don't Be Ashamed." On "Dedicated to the One I Love," Williams literally sends shivers up and down the spine as she uses her gauzy, slow, emotive voice to wrench every ounce of emotion from the verses -- with Penn adding another dimension to them on the bridge. Speaking of Penn, an excellent but reluctant lead singer, his reading of "Someone Made You for Me" is one of the most unexpectedly endearing performances on the set. McClinton's "Right Around the Corner" puts these rhythm & blues in the heart of honky tonk country. The back-to-back readings of "Messin' Up" by Jones and "Say It" by LaVette come close to stealing the show -- but Williams still holds on with the title track and her searingly naked "When I Get Like This" as the closer. Cropper also takes a couple of economical but stinging instrumental breaks on "Help Me Somebody" and "Think" that reveal the depth of Pauling's genius as well as his own. Given what a mixed bag tribute albums usually are, Dedicated is not only a surprise for its consistency, but a shining example of what they can -- and should -- be. - Thom Jurek/AMG

Stax Does The Beatles

Poppachubby tells me he has things he wants to post, I'm saying "then you need to just jump in and do it son because KC is on fire baby and I can't be stopped!"

This is just a whole lot of fun and something of a tour de force for Booker T and the MG's as what really happens here is that Booker tackles The Beatles with all of Stax records at his command. Okay, I'm on board! Thanks Candy, I know that where you are now there is always a show with no sound checks and no microphones because you're standing in the middle of them baby.

"The influence of the Beatles is and has been pervasive, but in the latter half of the 1960s their music was everywhere, unavoidable even if one wanted to dodge it, and few wanted to do that anyway. Beatles songs were so well constructed, so full of brilliant melody lines and dynamic rhythms, and so adaptable that other artists constantly covered them, including the folks at Stax Records in Memphis, home of deep Southern soul. This 15-track set collects some of those Stax versions, and while nothing here really makes one forget the originals by the Beatles, it makes for a fun and at times revelatory listening experience. Among the highlights are a previously unreleased studio take of "Day Tripper" by the late, great Otis Redding, whose driving, drastic reconfiguration of the song turns it into a gritty, greasy soul sermon on the merits of love, a trick Isaac Hayes also pulls off with his epic, nearly 12-minute rendition of George Harrison's "Something." Also worth noting are Booker T. & the MG's pulsing instrumental version of "Lady Madonna" and the Bar-Kays' sweet, chiming, and nearly wordless take on "Hey Jude." It's all a lot of fun, and for those who doubt that the Beatles had soul, the proof that they did is here. Nobody made soul music better than the musicians at Stax Records, so they ought to know. Case closed." AMG

All right, He may be just a little under informed about the musicians at other labels in the R & B/Soul world but I appreciate the boy's enthusiasm.