The “5″ Royales have grown in stature over the years, but they still haven’t been given the place in history they deserve, largely because of King Records’ shoddy treatment of their catalogue. In my opinion, of course, this is a dirty shame; the group counted among their fans Ray Charles, James Brown and the Shirelles, not to mention a teenage guitarist in Missouri named Steve Cropper.

Oh, and me: I’ve been wild about them ever since John Goddard, presiding genius and owner of Village Music in Mill Valley, California, handed me a copy of their Dedicated To You album and said “You ever heard them? You should.” I later wrote about them in Greil Marcus’ 1979 anthology Stranded, and even though none of the information in there was correct (which was sort of the point, although not intentionally), at least it got their name out there.

This is probably not the album to start with — there’s a Very Best Of on Collectables, although I can’t vouch for anything but its track listing — but it certainly has a lot of essential tracks, including quite a few that even I had never heard before.

In case you came in late, the “5″ Royales started as a gospel group, the Royal Sons, and went secular after their first couple of singles flopped. Scoring three hits on Apollo (“Laundromat Blues”, “Crazy Crazy Crazy” and “Baby Don’t Do It”), they switched to King, which was able to give them better exposure, and recorded there from 1954-58, though only two of the singles they recorded in that time ever bothered the charts: “Think” and “Dedicated To The One I Love”.

What the masses missed, the connoisseurs — musicians — picked up on. After all, who understood their fusion of gospel, blues and pop better than Ray Charles and James Brown (whose Famous Flames were also a former gospel group)? And if they were too bluesy for northern fans, they resonated with southern ones: many a southerner remembers standing agape as Lowman Pauling, their bass singer, guitarist and chief songwriter, led them through an athletic 20-minute version of “The Slummer The Slum” (a.k.a. “The Stompety Stomp”), interspersing the group’s insane dance routine with burning guitar solos from his low-slung Gibson Les Paul.

There’s lots of Lowman’s guitar here, and in fact this would be a perfect introduction to the group if it had included “Don’t Be Ashamed To Call My Name”, the only one of his showcases not on board. You can still marvel to “Say It” and “Think”, masterpieces of concision. I’ve often regretted never playing the former for Stevie Ray Vaughan, because the guitar is sort of concentrated Hendrix.

The “rarities” aspect of this disc isn’t as dire as it could be, although I was disconcerted to hear “I Need Your Lovin’ Baby”, which is, um, “Kumbaya”. But as the group gets more confident that it can draw on its gospel roots, even the obscurities get better, and by 1960′s “(Something Moves Me) Within My Heart” and “I’m With You”, they’re doing soul music, pure and simple.

Johnny and Eugene Tanner, the Royales’ two lead singers, are still alive, although they’re unlikely ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They should be, of course, because this disc proves conclusively that they, along with Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and a very few others, invented soul music. Someday the history books will have to admit that. I know, it’s hard, but it’s fair.