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7/12/2004

Jennifer Kelly

Funk obsessives who were disappointed by 2002's Standing in the Shadows of Motown soundtrack should check out The Royal Sessions right now. Like Standing in the Shadows, The Royal Sessions boasts an incredible line-up of soul/funk heavy-hitters -- Skip Pitts, wah-wah guitarist extraordinaire (that's him on "The Theme from Shaft"), Ronnie Williams and Willie Hall of the Bar-Kays and producer Willie Mitchell (who also put to tape a certain soul singer named Al Green). Yet unlike its northern counterpart, The Royal Sessions puts these legendary players right up front, in groove after instrumental groove. If you were one of the people who wished Ben Harper and Joan Osborne would just shut up already, you'll be pleased by the unadorned soulfulness of The Royal Sessions.

The Bo-Keys are the brainchild of Memphis garage rocker Scott Bomar (of Impala), who plays bass on this album. Bomar originally pulled together a band of seasoned Memphis musicians in 1998 as a backing band for Sir Mack Rice (a Detroit R&B singer best known for penning "Mustang Sally"). The line-up changed over time -- Bomar ran into Pitts almost by accident at the Stax Music Academy, where both were teaching summer camp -- coalescing in the spring of 2003 at Mitchell's Royal Studio. The result, recorded mostly live on analog tape, is loose and improvisational, slow and funky, laced with sexual heat and percolating with the simple joy of playing. The album opens with Ronnie Williams simmering organ, as steamy as church in August. The cut -- "Coming Home Baby" -- gathers steam as Pitts's wah-wah skitters in, dancing on top of Willie Hall's drum beat. There's a laid-back flourish of horns, then room for solos on organ (that's Williams), sax (Jim Spake), trumpet (Marc Franklin) and finally guitar (Pitts again). The groove never lets up, keeping solo excursions in line, pulsing and pushing and vibrating with heat.


Next up is "Deuce and a Quarter", perhaps the strongest track on the disc, with its blaxploitation guitar work and classic Stax horn surges. As in "Coming Home", the band first establishes a groove, then stretches it out with solos, pushing the edges without every violating the song's foundation. Less substantial tracks follow -- the squiggly guitared "Seven and 7" and the Latin flavored "Spanish Delight" -- then the disc picks up again with the slyly raucous "Back at the Chicken Shack". This is the kind of hip-shifting, slow and sensual funk that utterly stops you in your tracks. You don't want to do anything until it's over, except maybe press a cold beer can against your forehead and fan yourself with a piece of paper.


The only problem with this record -- and it's a small one -- is that some of the tracks seem to cry out for vocals. I know I said before that it's a plus that you can hear the musicians, and I stick to that, but there are a few places on The Royal Sessions that almost imply a voice. For instance, on "I Remember Stax", the album's slowest and prettiest cut, you can't help but imagine someone -- say, Aretha or Candi Staton or, heck, what was Al Green doing that afternoon? -- weaving in and out of the horns and keys. See if a voice doesn't hide somewhere in the corners here, murmuring and crooning and rising to the song's crest in some never-written verse about love and betrayal.


Still, this is great stuff, resurrecting the classic style of Booker T and the Mar-Kays, but without a hint of museum stiffness. If you like Stax soul, or if you're just curious about a genre that has supplied more hip hop samples than any other, give The Royal Sessions a spin.