Thursday, August 27, 2015

Forgotten Music: The 5 Royales Are The Best R&B Group Nobody Knows

The 5 Royales Are The Best R&B Group Nobody Knows

7 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Or maybe we do. I'm certainly familiar with the music, if not thoroughly.

Todd Mason said...

But, then, they lose me immediately at the point that Miley Cyrus is cited as a better inductor of the chorus than Steve Cropper.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Which reminds me: RIP Duck Dunn.


Jeff

Anders E said...

I'm totally with Todd here. But can anyone explain the quotation marks around the 5? Please.

Then again, what annoys me is the implication that this group was somehow way, way ahead in terms of rock 'n' roll. Excuse me, but even Bill Haley himself had scored a sizeable hit by 1953 with "Crazy Man Crazy" (covered that same year in Sweden by Ernie Englund, making it what is probably the very first European rock & roll record) and had recorded his hardest rockin' track way back in 1951 with "Rock This Joint". And Louis Jordan is already an inductee and he recorded as early as, what, 1941? And btw, Sister Rosetta Tharpe took the jump from gospel to secular around 1938. And btw, swing orchestras played rock & roll even as early as around 1930. It was so obvious - blues harmonics, riff-based, solid back-beat, juice the tempo. Hey! The punters went wild! "White Heat" recorded by the Jimmy Lunceford orchestra in 1934 is not only rock & roll, but so hard and fast it almost qualifies as speed metal.

Pardon my rant.

Unknown said...

Nice rant. The argument about the first rock 'n' roll record will never be settled. There's even a book about it, and nobody's satisfied with the answers there. Well, I guess the author is.

Anders E said...

When in doubt about a musical question, the answer is usually "Louis Armstrong". This stormer was recorded in 1929. Backup by the great, great Luis Russell orchestra. I'd say this is rock & roll. Any takers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j_AzM7TTNo

Unknown said...

It depends on what the definition of "is" is.