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The "5" Royales - Soul & Swagger: The Complete "5" Royales 1951-1967 (2014) {5CD Set RockBeat Records ROC-CD 3101}
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© 1951-67, 2014 S'more Ent. / RockBeat Records ROC-CD 3101
Rhythm & Blues / Rock & Roll / Soul / Gospel / Early R&B / Doo Wop / Jump Blues

One of the finest and most influential rhythm & blues acts of the '50s, the "5" Royales began their career as a gospel group called the Royal Sons Quintet before crossing over to secular music in 1952. The "5" Royales initially recorded for Apollo Records, where they scored hits like "Baby Don't Do It" and "Laundromat Blues," but they enjoyed greater success when they signed with King Records in 1954 and stormed the R&B charts with tunes like "Monkey Hips and Rice," "Think" (later covered by James Brown and Aretha Franklin), and "Dedicated to the One I Love" (which both the Shirelles and the Mamas & the Papas took to the upper reaches of the pop charts).

The aptly named Do You Like My Tight Sweater? slinks and bounces on a funky backbone of fat basslines and innovative beats that support singer Roisin Murphy's sly, theatrical vocals and lyrics. Part catwoman, part droid, her singing ranges from a knowing purr to an androgynous growl and creates characters like party weirdos, dominatrixes, killer bunnies, and ghosts. As dramatic as her vocals are, however, Murphy is an antidiva; her musical surroundings equal her singing in importance. The other half of Do You Like My Tight Sweater?'s individuality comes from Mark Brydon's arrangements, which combine fluid tempos, sudden breakbeats, witty sound effects, and unearthly keyboards in sci-fi grooves that appeal to the brain and body. Standout tracks like "Fun for Me," "I Can't Help Myself," "Lotus Eaters," and "Party Weirdo" mix sensuality, technology, funk, and electronica in a unique and stylish blend. While some of the sillier songs like "On My Horsey" and "Dirty Monkey" disrupt the flow of Do You Like My Tight Sweater?, the danceable creativity of Moloko's debut overrides its quirks.

For 50 years, The White Album has invited its listeners to venture forth and explore the breadth and ambition of its music, delighting and inspiring each new generation in turn. The Beatles have now released a suite of lavishly presented White Album packages, including an expanded 3CD package. The album's 30 tracks are newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell and features the new stereo album mix on 2CDs, adding a third CD of the Esher Demos. This is the first time The BEATLES (‘White Album’) has been remixed and presented with an additional disc demo recordings. To create the new stereo audio mixes for ‘The White Album,’ Giles Martin and Sam Okell worked with an expert team of engineers and audio restoration specialists at Abbey Road Studios in London. This 3CD ‘White Album’ release includes Martin’s new stereo album mix, sourced directly from the original four-track and eight-track session tapes.

A blues musician from Kansas City, Missouri, Samantha Fish impressed industry professionals as a teenager before scoring her first Billboard blues number one in her mid-twenties. Fish grew up in a musical family with a variety of genres, including a steady diet of classic rock radio. Her father played guitar and would sometimes jam with friends at the family house. Young Samantha started out as a drummer but switched to guitar at the age of 15. As a teen, she would sneak into local blues landmark the Knuckleheads Saloon to hear touring musicians, and began sitting in with them from time to time after she became legal at 18.

Band of Joy was the name of Robert Plant’s Black Country psychedelic folk group of the late ‘60s and his revival of its name and spirit in 2010 is of no small significance. Certainly, it’s an explicit suggestion that Plant is getting back to his roots, which is true to an extent: the original Band of Joy was unrecorded outside of a handful of demos, so there is no indication of whether this 2010 incarnation sounds anything at all like the ‘60s band but the communal vibe that pulsates throughout this album hearkens back to the age of hippies as much as it is an outgrowth of Raising Sand, Plant’s striking duet album with Alison Krauss. Such blurred borders are commonplace on Band of Joy, where American and English folk meld, where the secular and sacred walk hand in hand, where the past is not past and the present is not rootless…

First off, Kenny Wayne Shepherd was 33 years old at the release of this album, so he’s not a kid playing hot guitar anymore, he’s a grown man doing it. And he does play a hot lead guitar – that, in a nutshell, is what he does. But over the years he’s also learned that the blues isn’t just about blazing lead licks, it’s also about letting the song say its say – and on Live! In Chicago he does that. This is a concert full of songs and not just a bunch of guitar leads broken up by someone singing for a bit. Shepherd is also fully aware of the history of the blues and he honors some of his heroes here by playing with blues legends like Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Bryan Lee and Buddy Flett and he doesn’t step all over them with his guitar playing – he supports them. The concert grew out of the tour Shepherd put together in support of 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads project, a DVD/CD documentary that featured Shepherd traveling around the country on a ten day trip interviewing and playing with icons from the blues world, including the surviving members of Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's bands, making this show, recorded at the House of Blues in Chicago, a kind of culmination.