We Call it Irresistible

by Lindsey Maddox
April 2, 2008

If you’re the type who lives for Saturday night dancing at Schimmel’s, you don’t want to miss Wiley and the Checkmates during the Crossroads Film Festival. The Oxford soul band is sure to put a shake in your step with their funk-infused take on classic soul.

From the moment Herbert Wiley slides onstage in one of his eye-catching sequined ensembles, you know you’re in for a high-energy performance. Wiley is a true front man, and always manages to engage the crowd with his between-song-banter and provocative humor. Wiley’s full voice has the knowing sound of a soul man who’s been through it all, but still manages to tell his tale with humor.

The band augments Wiley’s effusive personality with finely crafted songs, a sonorous trumpet, sax solos and tautly jerking guitar riffs. “Sweet Breeze” the single from 2004’s “Introducing…,” is a perfectly constructed song sauntering along with its simple but unforgettable horn riff and the carefree lilt of its guitar foundation.

Wiley formed the original Wiley and the Checkmates in 1960, playing for many years on the Chitlin’ Circuit amid soul legends like Percy Sledge before he quit to run his family’s shoe repair shop in Oxford. In 2002, a local Oxford band inspired Wiley to re-establish the Checkmates. “When they were starting to open Longshot, The Preacher’s Kids were rehearsing there, and Wiley heard them through the wall, he came over and talked to them and the owner George Sheldon,” says.

Sheldon soon joined the group and worked with Wiley to assemble musicians for the reconstituted band. Guitarist J.D. Mark, bassist Matt Patton and bandleader Herbert Wiley are band regulars, and a rotating cast of members fills out the group’s lush sound with a second vocalist, percussion, trumpet and saxophone. The current crop of musicians comes from diverse musical backgrounds, gives the group a unique take on soul. Marks says these influences are “definitely a part of the sound.”

“The bass player and I have played all kinds of music from rock to blues and a little country; the drummer is a gospel drummer so it has a soul feel,” he says. Mark and Wiley share songwriting responsibilities with current percussionist Marty Crockett, and all but two songs on their forthcoming release “We Call It Soul” are originals. The album, recorded with Chicago label Rabbit Factory, also features guest musicians Ed Kollis, a harmonica player who has worked with Elvis Presley and Leonard Cohen; Regina McCrary, who sang back up for Bob Dylan; and Silver Jews keyboardist Tony Crow.

Wiley and the Checkmates perform in Hal & Mal’s Red Room Friday, April 4 at 9:30 p.m. If you miss this performance, the band will be touring throughout the Southeast in support of the new album, including Austin’s South by Southwest in March and the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans April 29-30.

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