Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back - Pinnacle

The message of this collection of civil rights songs from the fifties and sixties is that not only will veteran singer Mavis never turn back, she and her fellow campaigners will keep pushing on. “Things are better but we’re not where we need to be,” she remarked. The album is produced by Ry Cooder, who has given it a contemporary sound, and he plays guitar (needless to say, son Joachim, is on percussion) and, although the music sounds fresh, I do wonder whether We Shall Not Be Moved warranted inclusion. It’s the only song on the album that sounds tired.

The two strongest songs are Down in Mississippi and In The Mississippi River, for the horror of what they relate and the strength of the arrangements. Atmospheric though the arrangements are, it’s Mavis’ voice, full of strength and depth and drawing on personal experience of fear and prejudice, that carries the album.

Civil rights and spirituality were inseparable for Mavis and the other Staples Singers once Pop Staples saw Martin Luther King speak in 1963. They still are for Mavis: “A lot of people would rather hear a message in a song than listen to a preacher.” But really, she’s a singer and a preacher.