7/2/2004

Donnie Snow

NPR digs Bo-Keys' familiar flavor

Radio plug heats up recognition for retro-soulful Memphis combo

By Donnie Snow,
July 2, 2004

If you haven't been listening to National Public Radio the past couple of months, you're missing a classic Memphis soul revival.

Not with old MGs songs or Isaac Hayes, but with a record by the Bo-Keys.

The Bo-Keys' retro-soul instrumental debut disc, The Royal Sessions, was released nationally in early May by local independent label Yellow Dog. Last month, NPR's Meredith Ochs heaped praise on it in a segment.

"We noticed an immediate response after (the review) aired," said founder and bassist Scott Bomar, 29. He said the label sold out its cache of discs and had to reorder from the distributor, and the band's bookings filled up through the summer.

Produced by Bomar at Willie Mitchell's Royal Studios, the album first drew the attention of NPR's Bob Boilen months ago.

Director of "All Things Considered" and host of NPR's online section All Songs Considered (www.npr.org/programs/asc), Boilen put the album on the Web site and programmed bits of it as "music buttons," snippets between program segments.

Boilen has featured outtakes of songs like "Under the Table" and "Bling Bling" in programs including "Morning Edition," "Day to Day" and the "Tavis Smiley Show."

"There are two different ways I use music," Boilen explained in a call from his Washington, D.C., office. "(To discover) a new artist doing a new thing, (or to) tap an old sound. That's why I put them into "All Things Considered." (The Bo-Keys) tap into an old sound and tap into new sound."

"I'm thrilled," responded Bomar, "I listen to NPR (and) it means a lot to me that they would support the record."

That old-new, black-white sound comes from a collection of old-new players who began forming four years ago when Bomar began giving free lessons for kids at Stax Music Academy.

He met some of the Bluff City's most impressive session performers there, like drummer Willie Hall, who was in the first two Blues Brothers movies.

Over the next couple of years, the group added Stax vets organist Ronnie Williams (who played with the Bar-Kays and David Porter) and guitarist Charles 'Skip' Pitts (Isley Brothers, Wilson Pickett). Pitts provided the wah-wah lick on Hayes's Oscar-winning "Theme From Shaft."

Memphis saxophonist Jim Spake and trumpeter Marc Franklin make up the horn section with Los Cantadores percussionist Hector Diaz contributing.

"There are few sounds that you can listen to in a three-second period and know where that comes from," says Boilen. "Memphis has that sound."