Showing posts with label Pops Staples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pops Staples. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Pops Staples - Don't Lose This

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:38
Size: 88.5 MB
Styles: Memphis soul-blues
Year: 2015
Art: Front

[4:03] 1. Somebody Was Watching
[4:14] 2. Sweet Home
[4:33] 3. No News Is Good News
[4:00] 4. Love Is On My Side
[4:04] 5. Friendship
[3:04] 6. Nobody's Fault But Mine
[2:16] 7. The Lady's Letter
[4:49] 8. Better Home
[4:03] 9. Will The Circle Be Unbroken
[3:29] 10. Gotta Serve Somebody

Pops Staples, patriarch of the iconic Staple Singers, died in 2000. In 1999, he recorded his final tracks. Fifteen years later, daughter Mavis Staples teamed up with her collaborative partner Jeff Tweedy (who produced her albums You Are Not Alone and One True Vine) to finish the recordings.

Mavis detailed the album's origins in a press release, saying the initial idea was that they were going to record the final Staple Singers album. "It was meant to be our last work, but my sisters and I decided to let Pops sing, to let him have this one. ... One day, Pops told me, ‘Mavis, bring that record up here, I want to hear it.’ I brought it up to the bedroom and he listened. When it was over, Pops told me, ‘Mavis, don’t lose this here.’ I said, ‘OK, Pops, I won’t lose it.’ And he just smiled. It was a moment I’ll never forget. He had this glow after listening to it; he loved it. So I kept it." I always said I was going to get it out there because Pops told me not to lose it. When he said, ‘Don’t lose this,’ that meant: ‘Let it be heard.’

Tweedy played bass on the album, and his 18-year-old son (and Tweedy bandmate) Spencer drummed on the record. Mavis recorded new vocals as well. The original recordings were produced by Pops and Mavis, with Tweedy handling the newer production.

Don't Lose This mc
Don't Lose This zippy

Monday, December 15, 2014

Pops Staples - Father Father

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 44:57
Size: 102.9 MB
Styles: Country soul blues
Year: 1994
Art: Front

[4:21] 1. Father Father
[6:44] 2. Why Am I Treated So Bad
[3:21] 3. Too Big For Your Britches
[3:57] 4. Jesus Is Going To Make Up (My Dying Bed)
[3:04] 5. The Downward Road
[4:33] 6. People Get Ready
[4:24] 7. Hope In A Hopeless World
[4:35] 8. You Got To Serve Somebody
[2:50] 9. Waiting For My Child
[3:24] 10. Simple Man
[3:39] 11. Glory Glory

Pops Staples was 78 when he recorded Father Father, which was only his second solo album. The patriarch of the Staples family was always a team player, and providing solo albums was something he didn't do until he was well into his seventies. Although Father Father won Staples a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album, this isn't strictly a blues offering; true to form, Father Father is the work of an artist who had long kept one foot in secular music and another in gospel. This CD, in fact, has as much to do with gospel and R&B as it does with the blues. Staples' secular side is heard on his cover of Sir Mac Rice's "Getting Too Big for Your Britches," but the singer's spirituality asserts itself on everything from "Glory Glory" and the traditional "Jesus Is Going to Make Up My Dying Bed" to a remake of the Impressions' civil rights anthem "People, Get Ready." To be sure, Staples' voice had declined considerably over the years: comparing his performances on this album to his work with the Staple Singers in the '60s and '70s, it becomes obvious just how much his voice had thinned out. Even so, Staples manages to deliver an enjoyable and meaningful album, but one that -- despite its assets and Grammy-winning status -- is less than essential. Not for the casual listener, Father Father is primarily for completists and die-hard fans. ~Alex Henderson

Father Father mc
Father Father zippy