So maybe I should explain what this MOG stuff on my site is all about.

A few months ago, I received an email from someone at MOG inviting me to join their network of music bloggers. And I responded to it in my normal fashion – by simply ignoring it. (By the way, I recently lost a year’s worth of emails, so if the guy who sent me the deep blues compilation is reading this, please re-send!)

Then a few weeks later, MOG fired off another email that basically said “dude, are you sure you want to ignore our invitation?” I have to admit, that got my attention.

Turns out, being a MOG blogger has its advantages, especially when you consider my current level of compensation (somewhere in the low zeros). For example, I have free access to their online library of over 11 million songs. Granted, I’m only interested in a small fraction of those songs, but it enables me to check out a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally listen to. Bands like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, The Decemberists and Bon Iver, which remind me how much I miss “Déjà Vu” by CSN&Y… or how little I care about The Beach Boys (I know, heresy).

Without sounding like a late-night TV pitchman, let me give you the skinny on this newfangled subscription service. You can start by entering your favorite artist – let’s say, Boxcar Willie. Then MOG shows you all of the albums released by Mr. Willie, as well as compilations that include his songs. Then you can choose to listen to specific songs or an entire album, such as “Last Train to Heaven” (which received an average rating of five stars from MOG members, which tells you they either share a strong sense of ironic detachment or a deep appreciation of the Boxcar oeuvre).

The MOG player also includes this sliding rule that moves from “Artist Only” on the far left to “Similar Artists” on the far right. So you can adjust the player to select other tunes by Mr. Willie or songs from similar artists or a preferred mix of the two, and those songs will play after your current selection is over. By the way, I’ve already moved on to The Wood Brothers… don’t really feel like riding the Boxcar today. Stumbled In

If you think you’re onto something that bears a second listen, you can save it as your own personal playlist. Or you can choose to buy any given song from iTunes so you can have it for posterity.

Fact is, I’m sure MOG is very similar to other online music subscribers, like Rhapsody, Napster and Rdio (but better, of course, given MOG’s patronage of RCR). And I think – but correct me if I’m wrong – the main advantage that the subscription services have over Pandora (which is still free) is the ability to listen to specific songs or albums on demand.

To further complicate matters, Spotify just entered the U.S. market with a “freemium” service, ranging from free access with commercial interruptions and a time cap to $9.99/month for unlimited access, better sound quality and other extras. A friend of mine with the free service found it lacking in the Pandora-like personalized radio department (for more on Spotify, check here or here).

All of this reminds me of an article I recently came across in the New York Times by music critic Jon Pareles, who faces a dilemma that should be familiar to anyone who owns a large quantity of music – some of it rare – in various formats. I’ll describe it in my own terms: 11 million songs on MOG, but no sign of my favorite yuletide album, “Please Mr. Santa Claus” by Evan Johns and His H-Bombs (I still have my red vinyl copy). Stuffin’ in the Stocking

The problem then becomes, should I continue hoarding all my CDs, albums and cassettes (including many titles that are long out of print) using some kind of anal-retentive, color-coded tabulation system for easy retrieval? Or should I eventually get rid of those relics while keeping a massive digital library on my home computer that includes songs I’ll never find on MOG? Or, should I look to the clouds (The Cloud, to be precise) for a personalized online storage option – supported by Google Music Beta or, soon, iTunes Match – that would free up valuable space on my hard drive?

And what idiot invented the term “The Cloud”? Can’t we strip away all this whacky wiki-mysticism and call it what it is, a server? Deep breaths…

Pareles covers other ground in his article, like the fact that compressing all your music into digital files is very convenient but ultimately a poor substitute for vinyl and CDs played through high-end stereo systems. And having all this music readily available on a hand-held device ultimately cheapens the value of the music – as well as the amount of revenue that trickles down to hard-working musicians. All very thought-provoking and, to some of us, maybe even a little troubling.

The value of vinyl, explained.

But I’m confident someone will eventually come up with a workable “de-compression” system (I think a couple of tube-driven ones are already on the market) that approximates the warm analog sound. And I’ve got a nephew who’s figured out how to make a few bucks in the business the old-fashioned way – creating music that doesn’t treat rock’s roots with contempt, and steadily building an audience through constant touring (although I’m not sure The Black Keys would get the same breaks today that they did 10 years ago).

For the most part, I’m no different from the vast majority of music nuts. I want it… I want it now… I want it wherever I am… and I don’t want to pay much for it. And by those standards, MOG works just fine. Here’s Pareles’ take on it:

“For me… the great hope of the cloud is the subscription services, like MOG and Rdio. Their catalogs are deep, their interfaces sensible, their sound quality decent though not spectacular. For every fan who imagines herself a D.J., there’s a new social curatorial model arising in these services, somewhere between the old homemade cassette mixtape handed to a friend and full-scale broadcasting, with a giant potential library.”

“So Tim,” one might ask, “now that you have this unlimited access to new music, what have you been listening to?”

Well, I’ll close with some new “old” music from Gillian Welch’s latest release, “The Harrow & The Harvest.” It’s basically more of the same from Welch and her musical soulmate David Rawlings (guitar and harmonies). Which is a wonderful thing, given that this strain of backwoods American soul is practically a lost art. In fact, when you consider most of the dreck that is modern country – and some of the lightweight drivel that makes a whole lot of indie bloggers hyperventilate – you could argue that Welch and Rawlings have staked out the new alternative. Timeless songs with close-knit harmonies and stunning guitar… what’s not to like? The Way It Goes

The MOG genie led me from that tune to this one by Lucinda Williams, an artist I lost track of about five or six years ago. Big mistake… “Blessed” might be her best album yet: Copenhagen

This is how it’s done, son… Gillian Welch and David Rawlings live in London. Watch how Rawlings slaps on his capo right before he takes a solo. Never saw Albert Collins do that!

Lucinda Williams, with John Jackson (slide) and Kenny Vaughan on guitars. What do you call this, white-trash soul? Hillbilly crunk? I like the fact that while the indie boys are getting all misty-eyed about orchards and honeycomb towers, an AARP-qualified Lucinda just wants to rock (when she played this song on Austin City Limits, her band launched into the riff from Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin – an irony-free moment of pure rock ‘n roll bliss):

Tiny dancers in La Serafina, Cuba – photo by James Quine

Can’t tell what’s putting off more heat: the baked leather of my car seat or this bad boogaloo on my stereo.

Brother James and I had a ball putting together RCR’s post on Latin boogaloo, and I was glad to see it get new legs over at iCrates. But the best part of the assignment was revisiting some of the essential stuff that somehow got buried in my own collection (including more than a few items I stole from James’ stash).

That process of discovery rarely ends when I hit the “publish” button. It only makes me keep looking for other lost treasures – like those found on “The Soul of Spanish Harlem” (Beat Goes Public), a curious collection of boogaloo and Latin pop numbers from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Some of the songs on this disc are more interesting as odd artifacts from the era rather than as first-rate examples of Latin soul. But a handful fall under the category of “highly flammable,” including this dangerous little number released in ’71 on the NYC-based Fania label: Crying Time/Monguito Santamaria

The leader on that date is Mongo Santamaria’s son, Monguito. Most Latinophiles would regard him as a member of Fania’s A-team. But the nasty guitar is from an unexpected source – Eric Gale, who made a name for himself in the ‘70s primarily playing light jazz, both as a solo artist and as part of the all-star band Stuff.

As Dean Rudland’s expansive liner notes point out, Crying Time appears on an album that sort of lost its way in the legendary Fania catalog: “When Santamaria came to make his next album, ‘Blackout,’ the boogaloo craze was on the wane and the album became a somewhat schizophrenic blend of nascent salsa and pure Latin soul… Santamaria has said that originally the tracks were going to be split with one side of each sort of music, but that the idea was abandoned. It seems that Monguito held the band from ‘Blackout’ in high regard (along with Gale, it included Ronnie Marks on vocals, Monguito and Richard Tee on piano, Chuck Rainey on bass, Jimmy Johnson on drums, and a fearsome horn section – Bobby Porcelli, Martin Banks and Barry Rogers), but that he abandoned the Latin soul side for the more popular salsa…”

So in one album, you can track the fall of boogaloo and the rise of salsa. Too bad… I could use about a dozen more tunes like Crying Time.

My other favorite cut on “The Soul of Spanish Harlem” is by singer and pianist Joey Pastrano – who, as Rudland points out, became one of Fania’s stars on the strength of the seven-minute single That’s How Rumors Start. It features some wonderful call-and-response between Pastrano and his backing vocalists – including Tony Pabon and Tito Ramos, who previously sang for Johnny Colon and eventually busted loose as the appropriately named TNT Band: That’s How Rumors Start/Joey Pastrano

Manuel Galban

As long as we’re in a Latin groove, let’s pay tribute to the great Cuban guitarist Manuel Galban, who passed away on July 7 at the age of 80. In previous posts, we included a cut from a Grammy award-winning project by Galban and Ry Cooder (“Mambo Sinuendo”), as well as a song from the early ‘60s featuring Galban with the Cuban doo-wop group Los Zafiros. Several articles on Galban’s passing pointed out that Los Zafiros caught the attention of The Beatles (depending on what you read, the Fab Four either hired the Cubans as their opening act at Olympia in Paris or extended their stay to see the band play at the same venue). Here’s another sample that might help explain why The Beatles were so enamored with Los Zafiros: La Luna En Tu Mirada/Los Zafiros

Of course Cooder was more fascinated with Galban’s amazing touch on guitar – a unique fusing of American surf and a whole slew of Latin influences, including Cuban son and bossa nova. You can hear those influences and a few more (most notably, lounge) on “Mambo Sinuendo” as well as Galban’s essential contributions to Buena Vista Social Club projects featuring vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer and bassist Orlando Cachaito Lopez. Galban even lays down some funky organ on the title cut from Ferrer’s 2003 album, “Buenos Hermanos”: Buenos Hermanos/Ibrahim Ferrer with Manuel Galban

And here’s a nice clip of Galban with Cooder at Havana’s historic Egrem Studio, working through a number that appeared on “Mambo Sinuendo”:

Let’s close this out in Cuba by giving Anthony Bourdain his due: In the first episode of No Reservations’ new season, he clearly hit it out of the park by taking the show to Havana.

Where to start… If you had any love for James’ two posts on Cuba (here and here), you probably couldn’t get enough of the stunning street scenes and images that Bourdain’s crew captured in Havana. I especially liked the footage of Cuban baseball games, which shows people dancing in the stands to makeshift rumba bands. I’d go to a lot more Indians games if I could spend the 7^th inning stretch grooving to some Afro-Cuban. But I’d have a big problem with any attempt to ban beer sales (which the government put into effect following several drunken brawls in the stands – a policy that Bourdain finally admitted was grounds for a regime change).

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara: photo by Roberto Salas, January 1959

I also was fascinated with Bourdain’s interview with photographer Roberto Salas, whose strange odyssey as Cuba’s “state photographer” began in 1957 when he took a photo of the Statue of Liberty draped in a Cuban flag (an image that appeared in Life magazine). He was only 16 at the time, but was soon befriended by a young Fidel Castro, who brought the photographer to Cuba where Salas captured some of the revolution’s most iconic images. He’s been there ever since, but seemed ambivalent about his role in promoting Castro and Communism.

But my favorite images were those captured in the following clip. I’m a sucker for classic American cars from the Fifties – those big, bulbous, steel-plated wonders that probably burn more gas than 10 Honda Fits strapped together. Cubans love their old Chevys and Buicks, which are everywhere in Havana… Enjoy this little taste of the island, topped off with another photo by Brother James and a closing number by Galban.

Bodas De Oro/Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban

Recently I took a peek at Google Analytics and noticed that RCR’s readership was up. So I thought, I’ll fix that… Time to do a post on soul jazz.

What exactly is soul jazz? Well, I’ll give you my take and we can argue about it later.

You’ve probably heard terms like acid jazz, hard bop, jazz-funk or jazz fusion. For the most part, they all refer to strains of jazz informed by blues, soul and gospel – as opposed to popular show tunes like I Got Rhythm and Love for Sale that kept swing bands and be-boppers in business through the Thirties and Forties.

But don’t take my word for it… Here’s a definition offered by the good folks at allmusic:

“Although soloists follow the chords as in bop, the basslines (often played by an organist if not a string bassist) dance rather than stick strictly to a four-to-the-bar walking pattern. The musicians build their accompaniment around the bassline and, although there are often strong melodies, it is the catchiness of the groove and the amount of heat generated by the soloists that determine whether the performance is successful.”

Put another way, black jazz artists who were playing predominately black clubs knew what their audiences wanted to hear, and it wasn’t Broadway show tunes. In the Fifties, they were listening to Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker. And hard boppers like Nat and Cannonball Adderley were starting to incorporate more blues-based riffs and danceable grooves in their jazz compositions to create classics like this one: Work Song

As soul and funk became the dominant sounds of the next two decades, those influences were often channeled through the organ combo and jazz artists like Jimmy Smith and Grant Green. We touched on the former and a few of his many B3 disciples here, and sang the praises of Green in this post. If you like your jazz served up with a lot of funky guitar, heavy grooves and late-night ambience, you can’t do much better than this next tune, which features Green with organist Big John Patton: Soul Woman

While Green and Patton were laying down this little nugget in ’66, Miles Davis and John Coltrane were heading in far more ethereal and abstract directions – with Coltrane traveling through Interstellar Space the following year before leaving his mortal coil behind in July. But Miles had his ear to the dancefloor and eventually recorded some of the nastiest, funkiest music that can still be tagged (albeit loosely) as jazz. I wouldn’t call this next number “soul jazz,” but it definitely proves that Miles was paying a lot of attention to James Brown and Sly Stone in 1970: Duran (Take 4)

That number features guitarist John McLaughlin, who went on to form the jazz fusion supergroup the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Now I’m not going to head down that path, even though I listened to a fair amount of fusion in my younger days. Some of that stuff makes me cringe today – and I’m not sure the word “soul” can be applied to bands like Return to Forever and The Eleventh House that mainly seemed interested in performing daring feats of technical prowess rather than music with a human essence to it.

But I also won’t suggest that all the great soul jazz was recorded 40 or 50 years ago (although we’ll include a few more classics from the era at the end of this post). In fact, I’d argue that Charlie Hunter, Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Bad Plus, Garage a Trois and a few other contemporary acts are building on the soul jazz tradition by recognizing the most important lesson from those wayward fusion years: It’s all about the groove, stupid. Case in point: Bear No Hair

As you can tell, the guys in Garage a Trois have chops for days – and I’m sure guitarist Charlie Hunter could play an entire song in 32nd notes if someone put a gun to his head. Hell, he already learned how to play bass and lead guitar at the same time. But why play blazing fast leads if they don’t serve the song? And why write a song that requires a shitload of 32nd notes?

Stanton Moore

OK, I’m done ranting. Here’s another modern soul jazz standout. This one features Stanton Moore, who leads his own band… drives the rhythm section for Galactic, Garage a Trois and a few other bands I’m not even aware of… and remains the most dangerous drummer in a city with many great ones, New Orleans (this cut also features Charlie Hunter on guitar). Tchfunkta

Another first-rate contemporary band in the soul jazz vein just turned 20 – Medeski Martin & Wood. And they’re celebrating the occasion by releasing 20 new tracks (digital only), two per month until the end of the year. The songs are available on iTunes, Amazon, MusicToday and other digital retailers. Before you check those out, I’ll play you a sample from one of the band’s Blue Note releases… must be a tribute to the esteemed label that practically invented soul jazz back in the Fifties and Sixties. Note Bleu

Speaking of Blue Note, let’s head back to the era and touch on a few classics that should be part of any self-respecting soul jazz collection.

Someone at the label (maybe the boss, Alfred Lion) had the bright idea to team up jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell with master conguero Ray Barretto. And the smooth sound of Mr. “Hard Hands” lifts Burrell’s Midnight Blue into the realm of soul jazz nirvana: Midnight Blue

Sonny Stitt

This next track also includes Barretto, but this time with sax legend Sonny Stitt and one of the great B3 players of all time, Brother Jack McDuff. It’s from a sizzling session recorded in 1962 for the Prestige label: Nother Fu’ther

On some of his funkier soul jazz outings, Stitt liked to use an electric sax called a Varitone – which is sort of like putting Charlie Parker through a digital delay or Billie Holiday through Autotune. Interesting, but unnecessary. Still, you can’t deny the greatness of Stitt, especially when he’s settling into a deep groove like this one – with a perfect handoff from guitarist Melvin Sparks: Turn It On

That cut features three unsung heroes of soul jazz – Sparks, organist Leon Spencer and drummer Idris Muhammad. Other standouts of the form include guitarists Boogaloo Joe Jones and Billy Butler, organists Shirley Scott and Charles Earland, and sax man Rusty Bryant (a long-time resident of Columbus, OH). Seasoned musicians who could easily play straight-ahead jazz, but really earned their keep as session players on some of the best soul jazz outings of the Sixties and Seventies. And none of them ever got the recognition they deserved.

Here’s Boogaloo Joe burning through one of his originals, with fine backing from Earland and Bryant: Right On

Idris Muhammad

And here’s Idris Muhammad driving a dance tune originally recorded in 1969 by The Fabulous Counts, a Detroit-area funk band. The leader for this live date from ’71 at Detroit’s Club Mozambique? The one and only Grant Green: Jan Jan

We’ll close with one of the most soulful sounds in all of jazz – the big, bad sax of Gene Ammons. Just ask Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, who has an obvious weakness for Ammons-inspired instrumentals with healthy doses of B3. Here Ammons is joined on a ’61 studio date by Brother Jack on organ and our go-to guy for soul jazz conga, Ray Barretto: Twisting the Jug

Birth of a power trio… Enjoy the first 10 minutes of a film by Marie Pierre Jaury on Medeski Martin & Wood – part documentary, part primer on modern soul jazz (or whatever you want to call it). Includes great clips of MMW in action.

Think of the many streams that flow into that big river called early rock ‘n roll – blues, gospel, R&B, doo-wop, country… You can hear all of those influences and maybe a few others (Southern Gothic?) in the music of The “5” Royales, one of the greatest and most overlooked acts of the Fifties and Sixties.

Even if you’ve never heard of The “5” Royales, you’re probably familiar with their work. The Mamas & The Papas turned one of their most popular songs, Dedicated To The One I Love, into a massive hit in 1967 (topping The Shirelles’ version from six years earlier). James Brown scored his first Top 40 hit in 1960 by turning up the heat on The Royales’ slow-burning original Think. And Ray Charles’ last hit for Atlantic Records was a 1960 cover of the band’s R&B classic Tell the Truth (with vocals by Raelette Margie Hendrix).

But those songs just scratch the surface of this band’s amazing legacy, which remains buried under an avalanche of reissues involving far-less-deserving artists (good luck finding Rhino’s two-disc Royales anthology “Monkey Hips and Rice” – a thing of great beauty and majesty – but how about four discs devoted to one shitty album, “Band on the Run”?).

Time for our mandatory background check… The nucleus of The “5” Royales was formed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which also gave us Camel cigarettes, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and John Tesh (sorry, took a side-trip to wikipedia). And the band’s roots were decidedly in the gospel tradition.

The Royales’ signature sound was built around two members in particular – songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire Lowman Pauling and wailing lead vocalist Johnny Tanner. Pauling and Tanner started singing together in a gospel group called The Royal Sons. That band eventually included vocalists Otto Jeffries, Jimmy Moore and Obadiah Carter – the starting lineup along with Pauling and Tanner when The Royals became The “5” Royales in 1952 (pronounced roy-ALS, with the quote marks used to account for an early six-man lineup that included singer Johnny Holmes).

Here’s a gospel number recorded by The Royal Sons in New York City and released by the Apollo label in 1952: Let Nothing Separate Me

But The “5″ Royales started to gain some traction with a tougher, R&B based sound – and songs covering topics that you don’t hear about in church: Right Around the Corner

That tune was written by a couple of staff writers at Cincinnati-based King Records, where The Royales landed in 1954. But the vast majority of the band’s songs came from Pauling, who combined a keen wit with an uncommon sense of drama. A few of his tunes – most notably, Monkey Hips and Rice – had unlikely sources of inspiration, as Ed Ward points out in his generous liner notes to the Rhino anthology:

“One day on tour, the group was eating in a luncheonette when a customer cracked the place up by coming in and announcing in a loud voice, ‘Just gimme a plate of those monkey hips and rice.’ A light went on in Pauling’s eyes, and there was their next new song. Certainly punishing poor Geneva by beating her ‘down and down’ with a chair is uncalled for, but it probably should be taken in the same cartoonish spirit as the meal. (Next time you’re near a monkey, check out how much meat you’d get off its hips.)” Monkey Hips and Rice

The “5” Royales recorded a number of jump blues classics in the early Fifties. But the band entered a different realm in ’57 when Pauling began to cut loose on guitar. The sound of those gospel-infused vocals framed by Pauling’s gutbucket guitar is one of the great joys of rock ‘n roll, and you really don’t hear that sound anywhere else. It’s the perfect fusion of all those influences I mentioned up front, with no compromises and nothing diminished. Pauling’s blues is just as powerful as Tanner’s churchy vocals. Call it pure American soul: Say It

Speaking of soul, that tune betrays a far deeper side to Pauling’s songwriting – one that had little to do with clever phrases and double entendres. As Ward points out, “You just can’t put something like this out and expect those happy teens to snap it up.” Which might help explain why The “5” Royales remain virtually unknown while the teen idols who followed (Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Connie Francis, etc.) are still household names.

King managed to score a minor hit earlier in ’57 with Think. I was familiar with J.B.’s version long before I found the “Monkey Hips” anthology in a Lexington record store (god bless CD Central), so I was floored when I first heard the rocking, mid-tempo groove of the Royales’ original, punctuated by some nasty riffs from Pauling’s guitar. Don’t get me wrong – can’t do without the Famous Flames. But the original is an equally satisfying slice of wonder: Think

Steve Cropper

At this point, I should mention that Pauling was a big influence on a young Steve Cropper, who generously credited his mentor – and Pauling’s playing on Think in particular – when Cropper was earning his reputation as the king of soul guitar in the ‘60s.

“I think it was Lowman’s licks and stance that were unforgettable to me,” Cropper said (from 429 Records). “He had a way of weaving his fills in when there was a hole in the melody and vocal, then he would get right back to the rhythm. Early on, I drew my rhythm influences from Bo Diddley, whose solo picking I loved, but Lowman did a lot of stuff that no one could really duplicate. As cool as it was to see the way he worked with the strap live (Pauling would use a long strap to keep his guitar real low – down by his knees – then cradle his axe and let the strap hit the floor when he played leads), he was good to listen to on record too because of those amazing fills. As I began working as a session guitarist, I applied a cardinal rule that I learned from watching and listening to Lowman. You don’t step on top of the singer. You’re there to lend support until your time for a solo comes up.”

Although they didn’t tear up the charts in the late ‘50s, The “5” Royales fit right in with King Records’s fearsome stable of artists, including James Brown, Hank Ballard and Little Willie John. King’s long-time producer, Henry Glover (who also worked with the band at Apollo), seemed to understand how to capture the essence of a band that, by all accounts, was tearing it up on stage damn near every night.

Like most of the essential King releases of the era, there was little attempt to smooth out the rough edges. Glover and the label’s head, Syd Nathan, knew their audience – primarily urban blacks who wanted the real deal, not some lame imitation of what they were hearing in the clubs.

With Pauling’s guitar cranked up in the mix, The “5” Royales churned out an impressive (if largely ignored) body of work following the birth of rock. It’s hard to imagine how they missed anyone’s attention when you hear the original version of Dedicated To The One I Love. Johnny Tanner’s brother Eugene takes the lead vocals on this one, and I can’t decide what I like more – his great performance or Pauling’s meaty fills on guitar. Kind of makes you forget all about Mama Cass: Dedicated To The One I Love

As commercial success continued to elude them, various band members came and went in the early Sixties – and by 1965 the band was finished. Pauling struggled with alcohol and died of a seizure in ’73 (he was working as a night watchman in a New York City church). Other band members left secular music behind for good, including Johnny Tanner, who was the director of the senior choir at the St. John CME Church in Winston-Salem until he passed away in 2005.

Although nominated in 2002 and 2004, The “5” Royales have yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Abba was inducted last year. Do I really need to explain what’s wrong with this picture?

No videos that I could find of The “5″ Royales in their prime… But I included this static-image clip for three reasons: 1) good sound quality; 2) more great guitar by Pauling; and 3) rock critic Dave Marsh named this song one of “the top 1001 singles of all time” in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul.

“Dedicated,” Steve Cropper’s all-star tribute to The “5” Royales, will be released August 9 on 429 Records. Special guests include B.B. King, Delbert McClinton, Bettye LaVette, Buddy Miller, Lucinda Williams, Steve Winwood, Sharon Jones, Shemekia Copeland… I’m already wondering how they’re going to pull this off. Here’s how Cropper describes the experience: “…if I can get (young people) interested in The ’5′ Royales, I’ve done something. Lowman Pauling was a major influence on me, and I think what I got out of his playing was that as a one-man guitar he was able to play rhythm and then when it was acceptable, play fills or a solo. And I think that I carried that with me through my Stax days and most of the records I’m known for playing on, it’s that style of being one man on a session. His music is youthful, original, and full of spirit so that’s why I let his style influence me. It’s been the most fun I’ve had making a record in a long time.” Look for spirited remakes of The Slummer The Slum (Buddy Miller), Dedicated To The One I Love (Winwood and Williams), Say It (LaVette), Right Around The Corner (McClinton) and Think (recast by Cropper as an instrumental). I’ll give it a few listens and report back in a future post. Check here for a nice interview with Cropper about the project.

Cleveland. Where DJ Alan Freed first coined the phrase “rock ‘n roll” and hosted the form’s coming-out party, the infamous Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952. City that launched the careers of David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen. Home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. So it makes perfect sense that the city’s one or two remaining rock radio stations have been eclipsed by country (and sports talk, of course).

I bring this up only because of an experiment I recently conducted in my car, which has an iPod adapter that works about three months out of the year. Following its most recent failure, I decided to listen to nothing but mainstream country radio for a week or so. Partly to figure out why contemporary country artists like Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift and Toby Keith are so damn popular. And partly because I’m a glutton for punishment.

When it comes to country music, I’m more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Give me Senior, not Junior. Love Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and George Jones. And if I have to listen to contemporary stuff, I usually migrate toward the alternative end of the scale, where artists like Dwight Yoakam, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash ply their trade.

To my ears, much of contemporary country sounds like poorly disguised power ballads from the ‘80s – or even worse, a perfectly generic strain of southern boogie rock. In fact, the glossy sound of modern country music (processed drums, tricked-up guitars, etc.) makes it virtually indistinguishable from ‘80s rock. But I went into this with an open mind. I decided to make every effort to find something, anything, I might like about America’s number one music format. And I’m pleased to say I didn’t come back empty-handed (although I’d like to finish my time on earth without ever again hearing the term “badonkadonk”).

After hours of intensive research, I was able to identify several key ingredients you can find in many country hits.

First of all, modern country owes a huge debt to two major figures who never graced the stage at the Grand Old Opry: Keith Richards and Jack Daniel. Richards is noteworthy for inventing the opening riff to Honky Tonk Women – and various mutations of that riff are used to kick off the vast majority of “rockin’ country” hits. At least it seems that way. And Daniel because references to hard whiskey are far more prevalent today in country music than they were back in the ‘50s, when country stars actually drank whiskey and the term “personal trainer” could only apply to a horse.

Back to Richards… Here’s a nod to Keith from his Aussie namesake (and reformed alcoholic) Keith Urban, who ain’t no slouch on guitar but could afford to learn a few new tricks: You Look Good In My Shirt/Keith Urban

And here’s a tune by another famous Keith (Toby… see, I’m really onto something here) that also seems like a sanitized tribute to the Stones’ greatest hit: Beer For My Horses/Toby Keith with Willie Nelson

That little tribute to vigilante justice includes guest artist Willie Nelson – who, ironically, would be doing hard time if he and his fellow weed wranglers ever got stuck in Indonesia.

Another common denominator in modern country is this strange infatuation with a guy more closely associated with sailboats and parrots than guns and pickup trucks: Jimmy Buffett. I’ll just come out and say it… Every male country star wants to reinvent himself as the next Jimmy Buffett. Why? Three simple reasons. First, it would put them in the same financial zip code as Jimmy and his brother from another mother, Warren Buffett. Second, they won’t have to work nearly as hard in concert. And third, they can spend most of their free time sailing from one Caribbean island to another rather than dodging fans and floods in Nashville.

Of course, the frontrunner in the Buffett.2 sweepstakes is Kenny Chesney. Hell, Chesney isn’t the least bit coy about his strategy – he even records with the guy (then again, so does most of Nashville). Now I listened to Chesney’s new album all the way through. And I have to admit, “Hemingway’s Whiskey” ain’t too bad, especially from a guy who’s spent the last few years chasing parrotheads. Nice duet with Grace Potter. Strong lyrics. A few unexpected twists and turns throughout. But he still can’t resist the temptation to go coastal now and then: Coastal/Kenny Chesney

I’ve also noticed that far too many country hits sound like they were written with a Random Buzzword Generator programmed by a guy named Cletus. Let’s look at just a short list of terms that crop up often in modern country: boots, cut-off jeans, cold beer, whiskey, sweet tea, old back road, old dirt road, jeep, truck, tractor, four-wheel drive, six pack, dog, porch, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, small town, red, white, blue, blacktop, dancefloor, Hank, Willie, Waylon, Skynyrd, Friday/Saturday night, Sunday morning… Now let’s hit the RBG and see what pops up:

I’m drivin’ down an old dirt road
Blastin’ Hank in my pickup truck
Just slipped it into four-wheel drive
So I can plow right through this muck

My gal’s in her cut-off jeans
It’s a small-town Saturday night
Not in Georgia but in Tennessee
Where the whiskey tastes just right

When Sunday morning comes around
I’ll drive my tractor into town
We’ll praise the Lord and the Red White & Blue
Then rock some Skynyrd ’til the sun goes down

Needs a chorus, but you get the picture.

One song by newcomer Brantley Gilbert, Country Must Be Country Wide, even includes this amazing claim: “In every state there’s a station playin’ Cash, Hank, Willie, and Waylon.” Safe to say you’ll be driving for days before you hear Hank Sr. or even Waylon Jennings on the radio.

So what did I like about modern country, you ask? Well, let me see… Mostly I liked the women, who tend to leave the tired riffs and hackneyed slogans to the men. For example, if you’ve ever had a teenage daughter, you can certainly appreciate this song by Martina McBride: Teenage Daughters/Martina McBride

And I’m not going to go hatin’ on Taylor Swift (mainly because I don’t want to show up in her next song). Unlike a lot of her contemporaries, she doesn’t seem too interested in Nashville convention. I like to think of her as a countrified (as opposed to country-fried… big difference) Alanis Morissette – she’s sort of an angry young woman, but still a little too polite to tell someone to go pound sand up his ass: Mean/Taylor Swift

Then there’s Miranda Lambert… Who in his right mind would mess with this woman? I guess that would be her husband, Blake Shelton, but maybe he’s just not smart enough to know what he got himself into. Tunes like the next one and Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood are part of an interesting little sub-genre of country music that I like to call the “you messed with me one too many times you pathetic unlucky son of a bitch” song: Gunpowder & Lead/Miranda Lambert

Getting back to the men, it’s hard not to like Brad Paisley. Sure, he lacks restraint and sometimes good taste on guitar. But at least he’s not afraid of twang, which is something most country artists tend to avoid like the Democratic Party (interesting that Paisley and Tim McGraw buck that trend too): She’s Her Own Woman/Brad Paisley

Finally, there’s that whole Rascall Flatts thing. Surely there’s something about these guys I can latch onto. Anything. Let’s start with the fact that the singer is refreshingly homely. And he doesn’t wear a cowboy hat. Now let’s take a look at the music…

Take me back to the Eighties, when an exciting new breed of honky tonkers came up with the perfect antidote to bad rock. “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.” by Dwight Yoakam, “Storms of Life” by Randy Travis, “King’s Record Shop” by Rosanne Cash, “Guitar Town” by Steve Earle… The whole “cowpunk” thing was happening too – but bands like Green on Red and The Long Ryders weren’t allowed to play in the same sandbox as Dwight’s guitarist Pete Anderson:

Now this is country music – The Beatles’ favorite honky tonk band: Buck Owens and His Buckaroos (with Dangerous Don Rich on guitar and tenor harmony) on the Jimmy Dean Show, 1966. Stick around for Tom Brumley’s pedal steel bit at the end of the band introductions… 20 seconds of pure country goodness: