CD Reviews

Mavis Staples

We'll Never Turn Back | Anti-

By TED DROZDOWSKI | June 12, 2007

3.0 Stars

This is an overlooked gem: soulful, beautifully performed, and socially relevant. As a child from a Mississippi Delta family and part of the gospel-based Staple Singers, Mavis was in the heart of the African-American civil-rights movement of the ’60s and early ’70s. With father Roebuck, sister Cleotha, and brother Pervis, she sang about discrimination and the promise of liberation in the likes of “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)” and “I’ll Take You There,” and these freedom songs were lit by her incendiary, gravel-edged voice. On We’ll Never Turn Back, she brings that same fire, smoke, and spirit to classics and to the new songs she’s written with producer Ry Cooder. Supported by Cooder’s elegantly dirty guitar tone and the drumming of studio legend Jim Keltner and Cooder’s son Joachim, she huskily evokes the days of Jim Crow in the autobiographical “Down in Mississippi” and “My Own Eyes.” “99 and 1/2” gets updated, as she sings of the racially based neglect that contributed to the devastation of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And “We’ll Never Turn Back” is an ode to the determination of the downtrodden. Although rooted in history, this album’s themes and passion are timeless.

Related: The heart of soul, Nancy who?, The Carson Beach Battle, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Racial Issues, Social Issues, The Staple Singers, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY TED DROZDOWSKI

TOM HAMBRIDGE | BOOM! | August 23, 2011
Roots rock is the new country and ex-Bostonian Tom Hambridge is the style's current MPV.

COUNTRY STRONG | SOUNDTRACK | January 11, 2011
This steaming pile of songs is emblematic of the state of mainstream country music — all artifice, no heart, calculated anthems written to formula and meant, like the film itself, to do no more than capitalize on the genre's current success and rob its undiscriminating fans.

MARC RIBOT | SILENT MOVIES | November 02, 2010
This exceptional, eccentric guitarist has traced a slow evolution from screamer to dreamer.

IN MEMORIAM: SOLOMON BURKE, 1940 — 2010 | October 11, 2010

REVIEW: RONNIE EARL AND THE BROADCASTERS | SPREAD THE LOVE | September 07, 2010
Boston-based blues-guitar virtuoso Ronnie Earl seems to be considering his past on his 23rd album as a leader.