#4: Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back

 
Details: Mavis Staples (b. 1939), "We'll Never Turn Back." ANTI-, 2007. Total time: 57:48.

One day the year this was released I picked this up in a store and I forget where and why.  But I'm glad I did because this is a really great album.

Mavis Staples was with the Staples Singers for many years (one of their many hits was "I'll Take You There"). Here she sings solo as a wise woman. The album was produced by the great Ry Cooder who also played guitar on the album.

These are songs of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  Songs sung by people including children who were risking much while demanding rights and freedom.  They faced fire hoses, police dogs, police batons, angry whites,  the KKK, and the list goes on. They sang these songs to maintain morale and boost spirits while bodies were on the line.

Images come to mind while listening. A few are in the CD booklet.  MLK and Whitney Young.  Girls holding hands in the face of firehoses.  Liner notes by Rep. John Lewis who as a young man had his skull fractured by police batons in Selma 50 years ago this spring.

A few standout songs:

"Down In Mississippi" with the opening line,  "as far back as I can remember."

"99 1/2" -- "I'm running,  trying to make 100.  99 and a half just won't do."

"Turn Me Around" -- the song all those  children sang defiantly as they were arrested by the hundreds in Alabama. This is probably the best performance on this album.  Ry Cooder's mandolin playing helps make a special song even more so.

"I'll Be Rested" -- this one is incredibly moving with so many names of people struck down in their prime.  Medgar Evers. Emmitt Till. Michael Schwerner. James Chaney. Andrew Goodman.  The names of the 4 little girls in that church in Birmingham. Robert Kennedy.  Malcolm.  MLK.

"My Own Eyes" -- She was there in those days,  along with her family,  so it means a lot when she sings the line, "I saw it with my own eyes,  so I know it's true." It sounds like she is speaking to and teaching the listener not just singing.