Like Clyde McPhatter and Ray Charles, The “5” Royales played a seminal role in combining melismatic gospel vocals with rhythm and blues lyrics and instrumentation to help invent soul music. The powerhouse vocal quintet from Winston-Salem, North Carolina started out belting spirituals exclusively, but after signing with New York’s Apollo Records in 1951 detoured onto a secular route. They were unabashed rockers, as Bear Family’s new compilation of their sides makes abundantly clear, from their earliest Apollo classics (1953’s R&B chart-topper Baby Don’t Do Itand the delightfully ribald Laundromat Bluesare prime examples) through their prolific heyday on the King label. Their principal source of material, Lowman Pauling, Jr., unleashed his previously undocumented lead guitar work from 1957 on so lethally that it became a prime component of the Royales’ attack, slashing through their ’57 hit Thinkand deeply influencing Stax guitar king Steve Cropper’s developing style. The unholy marriage of sanctified and secular never rocked harder than when The “5” Royales were positioned behind a microphone!

• 1. I Like It Like That
• 2. The Real Thing
• 3. Monkey Hibs and Rice
• 4. It Hurts Inside
• 5. Baby, Don't Do It
• 6. I Ain't Getting Caught
• 7. Tell the Truth
• 8. Not Going To Cry
• 9. Do the Cha Cha Cherry
• 10. Laundromat Blues
• 11. (Something Moves Me) Within My Heart
• 12. Right Around the Corner
• 13. Catch That Teardrop
• 14. Think
• 15. I Need Your Lovin' Baby
• 16. Baby, Take All of Me
• 17. You Know I Know
• 18. What's That
• 19. Mohawk Squaw
• 20. Messin' Up
• 21. I Could Love You
• 22. Too Much Lovin'
• 23. I Know It's Hard But It's Fair
• 24. All Righty
• 25. The Slummer the Slum
• 26. I Want It Like That
• 27. Goof Ball
• 28. I Do
• 29. Don't Give No More Than You Can Take
• 30. Mine Forevermore
• 31. I'm Gonna Run It Down