Apollo Sessions

The "5" Royales | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 1, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collectables
• ASIN: B0000008YQ
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,025 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #29 in Music > Indie Music > R&B > Classic R&B
  • #62 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Oldies & Retro

Track Listings

1. Baby Don't Do It

2. Laundromat Blues

3. Too Much Lovin'

4. Baby Take All of Me

5. I Do

6. Courage to Love

7. Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

8. What's That

9. All Righty

10. You Know I Know

11. I Wanna Thank You

12. Put Something in It (With All Your Heart)

13. Cry Some More

14. I Am Thinking

15. Let Me Come Back Home

16. With All Your Heart

17. Good Things

18. Help Me Somebody

19. Too Much of a Little Bit

20. Give Me One More Chance

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Among The Pathfinders, September 18, 2007

By 

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apollo Sessions (Audio CD)

In response to the question "who were the best black singing groups during the mid to late 50s" - the beginning of the Rock Era - and the first names to pop up will invariably be The Platters, the Drifters, Coasters, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers and Hank Ballard & The Midnighters. Then, after a bit of thinking, someone will mention The Flamingos, Moonglows, Olympics, Cadillacs and Little Anthony & The Imperials. Then it'll be a bit longer before the names The Five Satins, The Cadets [or Jacks as they were also known], and The Rays are offered.

Great groups all, but somebody had to pave the way, and in the early part of the 1950s the pathfinders were groups like The Clovers, Dominoes, Five Keys, Ravens, Spiders, Four Tunes, Charms, Larks and early incarnations of the later successes such as The Drifters, led by the incomparable Clyde McPhatter, The Royals [who became The Midnighters, and The Robins who would transform into The Coasters.

Also in this elite group were The '5' Royales, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and consisting of cousins Lowman and Clarence Pauling [replaced part way through their career by Obadiah Carter], Windsor King, and brothers Eugene and John Tanner. They might not have been what you could call fabulously successful, but in 1953/54 they had five huge R&B hits, backed by Charlie "Little Jazz" Ferguson & His Orchestra. Baby Don't Do It and Help Me Somebody - two #1s - spent a combined 31 weeks on the charts in 1953 [the flip of the latter, Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, also went to # 5 R&B]. Later that that year Too Much Lovin' [Much Too Much] went # 4 R&B and in 1954, when their tenure with Apollo ended, they took I Do to # 6 R&B.

All are on this fine set, as are the other B-sides - Take All Of Me, the wonderfully wicked Laundromat Blues [my baby's got the best machine ... the best washin' machine in town ... just relax and take it easy while the machine goes round and round ..." and Good Things which, in my opinion, should have charted as well - it's that good.

With their new label, King, they found success a little harder to come by, taking almost three years to find another charter before scoring with Tears Of Joy (# 9 R&B) and Think (# 9 R&B and # 66 pop) in 1957. Unfortunately, this being a compilation of their stint with Apollo these two are not included. But even so the CD is a must for anyone interested in the music of one of the most influential singing groups of that era. In addition to fine sound quality, there are two pages of liner notes written by Mark Marymont.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless vocal R&B at its best., June 12, 2003

By 

Timothy C. Beasley (Crawfordsville, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apollo Sessions (Audio CD)

There is not a single track on this alblum that I don't at least like, if not absolutely love. This alblum contains the song "laundromat blues", which was one of the many songs blacklisted for radio play back then because it was thought too racy for the day. Heck, It's kind of racy by today's standards as well! The rest of the songs on this cd are very different however. They are soulful ballads full of pure soul and emotion. "Help me Somebody" is a prime example of this. I can picture the lead singer with a death-grip on the mic, belting out this wondeful song. This alblum is pure vocal R&B soul.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Royales On Appollo, December 18, 2008

By 

Richard A Schauer "Jack Shadow" (Kent,, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apollo Sessions (Audio CD)

There is not much I can add to the avid collector from Ontario's informed review except to say if you are at all interested in the wonderful music from this era this is a must-have CD. After fifty-five years not hearing the recordings I can still sing the lyrics to Good Things and Laundramat Blues. They are gems.

Nice to see The Five Royales being recognized as the fine group they were.