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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


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Showing posts with label The Royal Gospel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Royal Gospel. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Ruf Records artist: Royal Southern Brotherhood - The Royal Gospel - New Release Review

I just received the newest release, The Royal Gospel, from Royal Southern Brotherhood, and it's their best yet! Opening with Where's There's Smoke There's Fire, this band is hot. Tyrone Vaughan "smokes" the guitar strings with a vicious guitar solo and Norman Caesar's B3 ride is very effective. Darrell Phillips bass work, Bart Walker on guitar and Cyril Neville on percussion with Yonrico Scott on drums makes this a spectacular opener. I've Seen Enough To Know is a cool R&B style track with light funky guitar work and a great bass line. Blood Is Thicker Than Water has a super slinky, funky groove with reggae like vocals. An infectious percussion groove and slick guitar tips this one. A really cool track and one of my favorites on the release. R&B/gospel style, I Wonder Why really has a solid bass groove with nicely woven fabric of guitar , percussion, organ and vocals. Excellent! Cyril's fingerprints are on the writing of I'm Comin' Home, a really groove heavy track. The bass line is terrific and the slide work hair raising! Very nice! Everybody Pays Some Dues has a cool James Brown strut courtesy Walker and Vaughn. Vocals are strong and a cleanly executed guitar solo dresses the track. A soft bed of acoustic guitar by Walker and really lush vocals gives Face Of Love a strong face for radio play. Very nicely done. Spirit Man has soulful lead vocals and cool B3 work over a great percussion section. This track shows a modern interpretation of the stumble drum effect that I love so much about New Orleans jazz and an excellent slide guitar solo is scorching. Nice! Hooked On Plastic is funky to the max. A great bass line and well blended vocals over a hot rhythm line and clever guitar riffs makes this a particularly memorable track. Can't Waste Time has a great funky groove and super backing vocals giving it just the right feel. If this track doesn't get you moving, the San Andreas likely won't. Wrapping the release is Stand Up, a R&B style fast paced track that is just waiting to bust loose. Walker and Vaughan trading riffs on this track creates hot dynamics and with a cushion of B3 and hand claps the track had an old style revival conclusion, driven by a driving bass line of Phillips. Steamy ending to a hot release!


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Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Royal Southern Brotherhood: THE ROYAL GOSPEL: OUT JUNE 24




Royal Southern Brotherhood:
Comes A Musical Sermon
About Love, Unity, And Peace
THE ROYAL GOSPEL: Recorded at Dockside
Produced by David Z

Out June 24 On Ruf Records
“The whole record is geared towards making a joyful noise,” says Neville
Chemistry. You either got it, or you don’t. When the five members of Royal Southern Brotherhood convened in February 2016 at Dockside Studios, Louisiana, there was magic in the air. Just seven days later, the acclaimed U.S. soul-blues collective emerged triumphant with The Royal Gospel: the fourth album in their rocket-heeled rise and further proof of a lineup born to play together.

Enough has been said about Royal Southern Brotherhood’s illustrious backstory. Enough has been written about the critical acclaim and sell-out crowds that greeted the original lineup’s 2012 breakout. Right now, fans would rather hear about the questing new material and finger-on-pulse worldview of The Royal Gospel, released 2016 on Ruf Records. Amen to that.

Like all the best groups, Royal Southern Brotherhood has evolved. Having bonded on 2015’s Don’t Look Back, the MkII lineup of Cyril Neville (percussion/vocals), Bart Walker (guitar/vocals), Tyrone Vaughan (guitar/vocals) and Yonrico Scott (drums) have found another gear on bolstered by new recruit Darrell Philips (bass/vocals),and guest B3 from Norman Caesar.

“As far as the men making the music and playing the songs,” says Neville, “the mission of the band has never changed.”

Scan the credits for The Royal Gospel and you’ll recognize that while some bands operate a songwriting dictatorship, this one thrives on material penned in partnership (or even originated between three members). Neville is as prolific as you’d expect – given the fistful of projects he’s kept spinning over the decades – but so too are Walker and Vaughan, who collaborated remotely with their bandleader, trading ideas back-and-forth via the Web.

“It’s not often that you find a connection like Cyril and me,” explains Walker, whose Nashville home is some 800 miles from Neville’s base in New Orleans. “It got to the point where we were almost in each other’s heads – and we had already worked out what the other one was gonna say.”

“It’s a very spiritual thing,” agrees Neville. “I kinda laughed, because Bart was getting ahead of what I was even thinking. Last time, we actually got together in the room to do the demos. This time, it was all done by iPhone and stuff like that. But when you taste this musical gumbo, you’re gonna be very satisfied. However we approached the kitchen.”

When the band and famed producer David Z arrived at Dockside, the recording ethos was unapologetically old-school: simply cut the songs live in the room, eyeball-to-eyeball, in a minimum of takes. “We walked in not really knowing what we were gonna do,” recalls Philips. “Cyril and Bart come to us with chord progressions, tempos, and ideas, and we build together. We’d just fall right into the thing and all of a sudden, there’s the song. On this record, we came together as a band. It was a magical thing to witness.”

Likewise, it’s a magical album to hear. The Royal Gospel opens in emphatic style with “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire”: a stinging statement of intent co-written by Neville and Vaughan, whose hard-rock riffing is tempered by a vocal addressing a woman with “the face of an angel, a body that’s divine”. That same writing duo also strikes gold on “Can’t Waste Time”, its descending guitar hook fused to a lyric about a two-faced lover (“Girl, you’re like a ship without a rudder”).

Fans of the Brotherhood’s bluesier side will relish the rolling rhythms of “Spirit Man”, and hit repeat for “I’m Comin’ Home”, with its molten slide-guitar solo and travelogue lyric (“The road just goes on and on”). Elsewhere, Walker and Neville are at their soulful best on “Blood Is Thicker Than Water”, the veteran bandleader singing that “there’s nothing more sacred than the love of a son or daughter”, over a groove sure to shake the room as the band tour the world through 2016. “It’s extremely groove-orientated, this stuff,” nods Walker.

The Royal Gospel might move your feet, but it’s not afraid to challenge your perceptions.

“The whole record is geared toward making a joyful noise,” says Neville, “but while we’re partying, we still need to be thinking about what’s going on around us. It covers what we’ve seen in our travels over the last few years, and what we’ve lived personally as citizens of the world.”

Case in point, “Hooked On The Plastic” is an irresistible funk workout with soul-drenched backup vocals, but also a razor-sharp critique of consumerism (“Livin’ way above your means… no end to the stream of green”). And stick around for closing track “Stand Up”. A joyous call-to-arms in the face of feckless modern politicians, it ends with an electrifying outro, the band building to a dizzying crescendo while Neville hollers a global message to take a stand: “Come together! Come together!”          

It’s a thrilling finale to an album that cements Royal Southern Brotherhood’s reputation as a modern band to treasure. This is The Royal Gospel. Consider us converted. Only an elite group of players can be in a band like RSB, for it calls for supreme musical chops, soul giving and a little voodoo for each night the bar is raised.

Is it spiritual? Yes. Is it hell-raising? Yes Ma’am. Is it soul-grabbing? Yes Sir.
Get in line to be healed. The holy water is ready – are you?

Follow the on all their social media platforms:
Twitter – @RoyalSouthern
Instagram - @royalsouthernbrotherhood


The Gospel Tour

06/03/16            Mandeville, LA                  Ruby’s Roadhouse        
06/04/16            Ocean Springs, MS          Ocean Springs Live!      
06/09/16            Denver, CO                        The Oriental Theater             
06/10/16            Colorado Springs, CO               Stargazers Theatre         
06/11/16            Aspen, CO                          Snowmass Free Summer Concerts           
06/14/16            Lincoln, NE                        Zoo Bar
06/15/16            Wichita, KS                        Barleycorn’s      
06/16/16            Tulsa, OK                            Shrine  
06/17/16            Topeka, KS                         Uncle Bo’s      
06/18/16            Kansas City, MO               CrossroadsKC    
06/24/16            Norfolk, VA                        Bayou Boogaloo           
07/08/16            Auburn Hills, MI                Callahan’s          
07/09/16            Kalamazoo, MI                 Kalamazoo Valley Blues Festival
07/10/16            Evanston, IL                       SPACE  
07/14/16            Madison, WI                     La Fete de Marquette   
07/15/16            South Bend, IN                 Vegetable Buddies          
07/16/16            Milwaukee, WI                 Bastille Day Festival       
07/30/16            Pomeroy, OH                    Big Bend Blues Bash         
08/06/16            Burnaby, BC                      Burnaby Blues Festival     Canada
08/12/16            Calabogie                           Calabogie Blues & Ribfest  Canada
08/13/16            Québec                               Donnacona Blues Festival             Canada
08/20/16            Calabogie, OH                   Calabogie Blues – Blues & Ribfest  
09/10/16            Las Vegas, NV                   Big Blues Bender 
09/11/16            Las Vegas, NV                   Big Blues Bender 
10/30/16            Lake Harmony, PA               Pennsylvania Music Festival