5 Royales Rock CD

The Five Royales
5 Royales Rock CD

The 5 Royales was a vocal quintet from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
They 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 this superb 31 track collection makes abundantly clear, from their earliest Apollo Records classics including 1953’s R&B chart-topper Baby Don’t Do It 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 Think and 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!