The Holmes Brothers

The Holmes Brothers took their country-soul sound with them when they uprooted for the big city. To hear guitarist Wendell Holmes tell the story, at the time he and his bassist brother Sherman were coming up in Tidewater, Virginia, "white stations had more kilowatts than black stations." They'd be listening to rhythm & blues on the radio when the country station would intrude on the same frequency—and it probably accounts for the twangy tint their songs still have today.

Although Wendell and Sherman (along with drummer Popsy Dixon) helped originate the NYC blues scene (in the late '70s at a club called Dan Lynch's), their sound probably leans more toward Southern soul. In the tradition of recent albums by Solomon Burke and Bettye LaVette, the band often looks to unlikely places for cover material. We're sure some R&B purist/collector types probably slapped their foreheads when the Brothers covered Collective Soul's "Shine," but it worked—and if you didn't know they were gospeling up some post-grunge cliché, would you have guessed? Or cared?

After recording for the Rounder label for a decade, the Brothers switched to Chicago's own Alligator Records in 2001, where they debuted with an iffy gospel set, Speaking In Tongues (produced by Joan Osborne), which sounded a little too slick and Adult Alternative to catch the spirit. They followed that up three years later with Simple Truths, which was a far better showcase. In addition to "Shine" and their ongoing jones for old Hank Williams and Jimmy Reed numbers, they essay Jim Reeves's 1960 country-crossover hit "He'll Have to Go," rendering this cheating song like it was a gospel hymn.—James Porter