Stan Mosley’s Malaco releases—for example, Don’t Make Me Creep from his 1998 debut for the label, The Soul Singer, and Anybody Seen My Boo from 2000’s Souled Out—are among the hardest-hitting and most explosive in the southern soul (or soul blues) canon. Equally effective are his ballads, such as Rock Me (Until I Cannot Stand This Rocking Anymore), also from The Soul Singer. Delivered in Mosley’s trademark emery-board rasp, these songs evoke a mood both pugnacious and emotionally vulnerable—the testimonies of a street-tough player with a tender heart.
—David Whiteis