[image-4]Published October 09, 2008.
Steve Cropper & Felix Cavaliere
Nudge it up a Notch
(Stax)
Steve Cropper played guitar with Booker T & the MGs and led the band backing The Blues Brothers. And Felix Cavaliere sang with The Rascals, helping originate blue-eyed soul with songs like “Good Lovin'” and “Groovin.'” And Stax, well, that label brought the world the likes of the late, lamented Isaac Hayes. But this album, Nudge it up a Notch, shows how time can turn old soul and R&B, and the people who play it, into stale and pale versions of their old selves. The tracks sound cleaned up and smooth, lacking the rawness, grit and sweat that made those records from the mid-’60s and through the early ’70s so good.
Sean Flinn
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2008.