Album: Steve Cropper & Felix Cavaliere, Nudge It Up a Notch, (Stax)

Those educated in rhythm matters will know Cropper as the genius of economy who played guitar in Booker T’s MGs, and Cavaliere as the singer who fronted blue-eyed soul boys the Young Rascals.

‘Nudge’ sounds exactly how you’d expect it to: generic, soulful, Staxy R&B, nicely turned, eminently dated, thoroughly tasteful – but rather limited in its writing. Cropper’s Telecasting is as archetypal as a Palladian villa. You inhabit it and, somehow, it just feels right. Cavaliere is not Otis Redding, however.

Pick of the album: ‘One of Those Days’: attach it to your roogalator

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