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Amazon.co.uk Review
As musical activists in the 1960s civil rights movement, the Staple Singers were powerful voices for equality and change. And more than 40 years after Pops's daughter Mavis spent a night in a West Memphis, Arkansas, jail at the behest of a racist cop, she still remembers the terror of the experience, as well as the counsel of Dr. Martin Luther King. That episode is at the centerpiece of "My Own Eyes," one of the most moving offerings on this collection of songs of racial struggle in the '50s and '60s, produced by guitarist Ry Cooder and featuring backing from the original Freedom Singers and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Throughout, the album proves both emotionally chilling and spiritually uplifting. On J .B. Lenoir's "Down in Mississippi" and Marshall Jones's "In the Mississippi River," for example, Cooder makes fine use of pounding percussion and snaky electric guitar to capture the danger and fear inherent in the Deep South at the time, while the title song and "Jesus Is on the Main Line" draw on gospel and the traditional framework of church hymns to promise positive solutions. Staples, who ad-libs on several cuts, connecting the injustice of yesterday to the continuing marginalization of blacks in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, remains a remarkable performer, employing a throaty sensuality that rises from a deep well of tremulous emotion. If her album is musically uneven at times, her artistry and strength continue to shine as undimmed beacons. --Alanna Nash
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
As musical activists in the 1960s, The Staple Singers were powerful voices for equality and change. Working with Dr. Martin Luther King and singing in support of the Civil Right movement, they drew on their spirituality and the strength of the church to achieve social justice.
Mavis Staples' new album, We'll Never Turn Back, combines raw, emotional, contemporized versions of some of the freedom songs, along with other traditional songs, that provided the soundtrack to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and original material written by Staples and producer Ry Cooder. Having helped to define what is righteous and soulful in A merican music, this is Staples' most electrifyingly personal and polemical album of her career.
Ry Cooder and his son, Joaquin, drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Mike Elizando, many of the original Freedom Singers and South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo create soundscapes for Mavis' deep-in-the-well, heartfelt vocals to flourish. Mavis ad-libs spoken and sung commentary on several songs, connecting the lyrics to her own life, her family and the issues of the day.
Traditional numbers like This Little Light and 99 ½ are given a new lease of life by Staples' incredible voice and Ry Cooder's powerful arrangements, while the cover of Southern bluesman J.B. Lenoir's Down In Mississippi is an early stand out moment. The new material, however, more than matches up to the feeling of the traditional songs; the title track - co-written by Staples and Cooder - and the Cooder-penned I'll Be Rested both recall the pounding emotion of 1960s gospel music.
Not only a deeply personal account of Mavis' life from her childhood days in Mississippi, through the Civil Rights era and up to her current indignation over the continuing treatment of some Americans as second class citizens, We'll Never Turn Back is a wonderful homage to a period in which everyday citizens exhibited incredible bravery and wrought incredible changes to society, retrieving some of the most treasured voices in contemporary music and finding that behind it lies an inspirational force.
Mavis Staples' new album, We'll Never Turn Back, combines raw, emotional, contemporized versions of some of the freedom songs, along with other traditional songs, that provided the soundtrack to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and original material written by Staples and producer Ry Cooder. Having helped to define what is righteous and soulful in A merican music, this is Staples' most electrifyingly personal and polemical album of her career.
Ry Cooder and his son, Joaquin, drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Mike Elizando, many of the original Freedom Singers and South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo create soundscapes for Mavis' deep-in-the-well, heartfelt vocals to flourish. Mavis ad-libs spoken and sung commentary on several songs, connecting the lyrics to her own life, her family and the issues of the day.
Traditional numbers like This Little Light and 99 ½ are given a new lease of life by Staples' incredible voice and Ry Cooder's powerful arrangements, while the cover of Southern bluesman J.B. Lenoir's Down In Mississippi is an early stand out moment. The new material, however, more than matches up to the feeling of the traditional songs; the title track - co-written by Staples and Cooder - and the Cooder-penned I'll Be Rested both recall the pounding emotion of 1960s gospel music.
Not only a deeply personal account of Mavis' life from her childhood days in Mississippi, through the Civil Rights era and up to her current indignation over the continuing treatment of some Americans as second class citizens, We'll Never Turn Back is a wonderful homage to a period in which everyday citizens exhibited incredible bravery and wrought incredible changes to society, retrieving some of the most treasured voices in contemporary music and finding that behind it lies an inspirational force.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Accept no substitute.... Mavis & Ry together? Hallelujah, brothers and sisters! If we lived in Utopia, then this is what radio stations would A-list programme as "R'n'B", instead of the fidgety processed pap for shopgirls that they peddle. Yeah, I know that junk sells, but this is real people playing real instruments with a rare commodity in music today: humanity, soul... call it what you will. Essential for anyone who thinks they know music. Here endeth the lesson!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I don't think you get the most out of this album by running straight through it, Yes Mavis is inspirational, and Ry Cooder the perfect foil, but because the theme stays the same ( obviously ) I can understand why one reviewer found the album dull . It's better to listen to just one or two tracks at a time , and then you can appreciate the full moral force of the lyrics, and the arrangement, without being distracted by the desire to find the whole album 'entertaining'.
There are some gems here, and I think they are the sort that grow on you, if you listen to a track a few times and really get to know it.
Noone has mentioned '99 and 1/2' which has an infectious rhythm and guitar lick , overlaid with Mavis at her enthusiastic best. Indeed Mavis is perfect for these songs, with her combination of harshness, restraint, but determination , as she exorts others to follow the cause.Uplifting.
There are some gems here, and I think they are the sort that grow on you, if you listen to a track a few times and really get to know it.
Noone has mentioned '99 and 1/2' which has an infectious rhythm and guitar lick , overlaid with Mavis at her enthusiastic best. Indeed Mavis is perfect for these songs, with her combination of harshness, restraint, but determination , as she exorts others to follow the cause.Uplifting.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A change did come
Mavis Staples-what a brilliant name.
And since the CD Age and Internet the profile of the Staples Singers is higher than ever. Read more
And since the CD Age and Internet the profile of the Staples Singers is higher than ever. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Richard
Mavis and Ry showcase freedom songs
This album manages to sound very modern and yet traditional old time delta and southern soulat the same time. Read more
Published on 25 Dec 2009 by Mr. Bob Goupillot
'We'll Never Turn Back' - Just what I hoped for
One of the all time great voices with one of the all time great guitarists and even one of the all time great drummers usually would be a recipe for disappointment. Read more
Published on 20 May 2009 by M. Belmont
Mavis & Cooder Meet To Tell It Like It Is (4.5 stars)
What Mavis has chosen to do in this album is to reinterpret a number of classic anthems from the Civil Rights movement as well as including several compositions of her own, all of... Read more
Published on 30 May 2007 by Juan Mobili
Don't look back?
I'd been looking forward to this CD being released for months and now I've got to say I'm disappointed, probably because I was expecting more from a Ry Cooder production that also... Read more
Published on 7 May 2007 by G. E. Harrison
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