Typically, when a band is described as Stonesy, it means theres a certain swagger to the outfits sound and plenty of wiry guitar raunch. However, Asheville, North Carolina, quartet the Choosy Beggars offer a different angle on the Stonesy tag. Their stripped-down soul music is halfway between the Rolling Stones in 65, when they were covering Sam Cooke and Don Covay, and the Sweet Virginia Stones, albeit with plenty of Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye-style grooviness mixed in.
The thirteen songs here are all originals, some rooted in country blues (most notably Missin You/Half Price, which is part Delta, part the Replacements Treatment Bound) and some with their soul roots showing, be it the Cooke nod provided by the title of Chain Gang or the Lean On Me echoes in the seven-minute centerpiece The Time Is Drawing Near.
Impressively, the songwriting is as well-informed as the grooves, with lines such as Tears that run all down/Soaking my pillowcase/I drank em all now, baby/Theyre bitter to the taste reading like a snippet from the most yearning of deep soul ballads. Without a strong vocalist, those words, and likely the whole enterprise, would fall flat. But Bryan Cates voice somehow manages to sound both creamy and rugged.
An attempt at a tagline Mick meets Motown in the mountains conjures images of a Catskills prizefight. But thanks to topography and the efforts of Cates and company, its pretty much spot-on.