The "5" Royales

History

Originally the Royal Sons Quintet, the group began recording for Apollo Records in the early 1950s, changing its name to the Royals after abandoning gospel for secular music. The group included Pauling and the vocalists Jimmy Moore, Obadiah Carter, and Otto Jeffries, with Johnny Tanner (November 28, 1926 – November 8, 2005) singing lead. Tanner's younger brother, Eugene, later replaced Jeffries. The robust Johnny Tanner sang lead on most of the group's hits, including "Think," but the sweeter-voiced Eugene Tanner stepped to the microphone for the group's best-known song, "Dedicated to the One I Love." "Baby Don't Do It" and "Help Me Somebody" became hits in 1953, and the group soon signed with King Records. In addition to heartfelt odes like "Dedicated to the One I Love," Pauling also wrote comic and risque tunes, including "Monkey Hips and Rice", later the title of a two-CD anthology of the group's music released by Rhino Records in 1994. Pauling used an extra-long strap for his guitar, sometimes playing it down around his knees for comic effect. The group shared stages with all the major R&B artists of the 1950s, including Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, once substituting for the latter's Raelettes at a show in Durham, North Carolina.

Confusion arose when two groups of Royals began touring, the other led by the Detroit R&B star Hank Ballard. According to members of the "5" Royales, the confusion peaked in 1953 when an unscrupulous promoter booked Ballard's group in Winston-Salem, trying to pass the Detroit band off as the hometown group with the same name, much to the chagrin of a local audience. Shortly thereafter, the air cleared when Winston-Salem's Royals became the "5" Royales and Detroit's Royals became the Midnighters. Both groups had hits at King working with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame producer Ralph Bass, becoming good friends and routinely competing in battles of the bands at clubs like the Royal Peacock, in the Sweet Auburn section of Atlanta. Ballard's group gained fame for originating "The Twist", later a dance craze and hit for Chubby Checker, and for its risque series of "Annie" songs, including "Work with Me Annie" and "Annie Had a Baby."

With King, "Think" and "Tears of Joy" became hits for the "5" Royales in 1957. Some of their lesser-known tracks from this period are now critically acclaimed as innovative. Veteran rock critic Dave Marsh chose the 1958 "5" Royales hit "The Slummer the Slum" as one of the top 1001 singles of all time in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul, crediting Pauling with capturing the first intentional use of guitar feedback on record, years before better-known squawks from the Beatles, Yardbirds, and Velvet Underground. In the 1960s, R&B gradually gave way to more polished soul music and the Royales' career waned rapidly.

The "5" Royales broke up in 1965, though various combinations of musicians toured under the group's name into the 1970s. For a time Pauling continued recording with the pianist and frequent Royales collaborator Royal Abbitt as El Pauling and the Royalton. Pauling's brother, Clarence Paul, a former member of the Royal Sons Quintet, found success as a producer and songwriter at Motown Records in the 1960s.

After years of struggle with alcohol dependency, Pauling ended up working as a night watchman at a Manhattan church and died of an apparent seizure on December 26, 1973. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Winston-Salem, as were his brother Clarence, who lies next to him, and his bandmates Otto Jeffries, who died on August 8, 1975, and Obadiah Carter, who died on June 30, 1994. Health problems forced Eugene Tanner to take disability benefits in the years before his death on December 29, 1994. His brother Johnny Tanner died of cancer on November 8, 2005. Jimmy Moore died on August 16, 2008.

The "5" Royales were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. They were nominated unsuccessfully for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and 2004; they were inducted in 2015 in the category Early Influence.

The legacy and influence of the "5" Royales was profiled on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday on August 14, 2011, in an interview with the guitarist Steve Cropper. Cropper released the album Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales in 2011.

In May 2015, another compilation of their work won a Blues Music Award in the Historical category.