The 5 Royales - Catch That Teardrop - The Best Of The Home Of The Blues 1960-1964 Sessions (2007) Ace + Booklet - Rare R&B/Soul (FLAC 223MB)

The 5 Royales are cited as a groundbreaking link between gospel, R&B, rock, doo wop, and soul music, real innovators. Recording 6 studio albums and 60 + 45,s their pedigree speaks for itself......Lowman Pauling and his brothers Clarence and Curtis backed their father, Lowman Pauling Sr. during concerts as the Royal Sons Gospel Group in their native North Carolina. In the early 1950's, Carolina radio producer Robert Woodward contacted NY based Apollo Records about the group. Signed by Apollo Records, the group's name was changed from the Royal Sons Quintet to the 5 Royales by the label's Carl Le Bowe. Because they were a six-man outfit for a while, the quotes around the 5 in their billing was a recognition of this and was designed to help to alleviate confusion. With the departure of Johnny Holmes and later Clarence Pauling (who would later change his name to Clarence Paul and become a successful Motown producer/songwriter/A&R director and a mentor to Stevie Wonder), the group lineup was guitarist Lowman Pauling, lead singer Johnny Tanner, tenors James 'Jimmy' Moore and Obadiah "Scoop" Carter, and baritone Otto 'Jeff' Jeffries. Their first single was "Give Me One More Chance" b/w "Too Much of a Little Bit." Jeffries became the group's manager and was replaced in the baritone spot by Eugene 'Gene' Tanner. By then (1952), the group had evolved from consisting of solely gospel music to include doo-wop, jump blues, rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel. In all, the group released seven Top Ten R&B hits including, "Baby Don't Do It", and "Help Me Somebody", which both landed at #1 in 1953. They left the Apollo Record Label in 1954, and signed with the King Records that same year. Throughout the next few years they released other recordings including "Think", "Tell The Truth", "Tears Of Joy", and "The Slummer The Slum." Throughout the rest of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the group continued to record, but spent most of that time touring. They later left the King Record Label, and after a few other recordings, the group called it quits, and disbanded in 1965......... Behind every great soul group there’s usually another great soul group, and behind all of them, at the very foundation of soul harmony, there will always be the 5 Royales. I love their ahead-of-their-time harmonies. & like their spiritual successors, the Temptations the 5 Royales were never afraid to swap their lead singers to suit the mood of their material. These guys took doo wop and turned it into soul. I love the trailblazing guitar work and the songwriting of their main man Lowman Pauling. These guys are pure class in every sense of hthe word. The group’s long established level of adulation among R&B fans is now being duplicated among soul fans, who have been slow to catch on to their talents are now hunting down and making prized artefacts out of some of the recordings that appear on this album. Exceptionally popular in Memphis, the 5 Royales opted to sign with a new label based there. This gave them the opportunity to make records with musicians who went on to achieve fame as the architects of two generations of the Memphis Sound. With Poppa Willie Mitchell leading the band and producing the records, the Home Of the Blues sides couldn’t fail to be good. Unfortunately they did fail to be hits, with the end result that the original HOTB 45s are among the rarest that the 5 Royales ever released in a 30 + year career. The best of these, along with the complete Federal recordings of El Pauling and the Royales’ pianist Royal Abbit, are gathered up on this album. The title track and "Take Me With You Baby" both currently command between £200 to £400 on the Northern Soul circuit. Likewise, such Pauling/Abbit sides as Everybody Knows are collected by New Breed R&B fans and played everywhere from Bury to Barcelona, yet almost none of the Federal recordings have ever been reissued since they first appeared on vinyl more than 40 years ago. The shared lead vocals of brothers Eugene and Johnny Tanner offer thrill a minute stuff and they’re backed by vocal harmonies that are never less than sublime. The brass-heavy rhythm tracks show that Memphis soul was already alive and well and ready to do its thing a full year before records like Last Night and Green Onions indelibly defined the genre. And El Pauling’s amazing guitar work demonstrates time and time again why Steve Cropper has always acknowledged him to be a prime influence. To any soul fans on here not aware of this super groups records, DONT MISS OUT and enjoy the legends that are The 5 Royals.

AMM

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