Searching

The press release which calls the second album by the Staples Jr Singers ‘long awaited’ is something of an understatement. When Do We Get Paid, the debut album by what at the time was a ten-strong soul-gospel family band from Mississippi was recorded almost half a century ago in 1975. Only a few hundred copies were pressed and distributed to friends and neighbours. The album was then forgotten until reissued by Luaka Bop in 2023. The favourable reception then persuaded the label to reassemble the three surviving members – R C Brown, Edward Brown and Annie Brown Caldwell – plus supporting musicians to record this album in a Mississippi church over two evenings when the day’s work was done. The result is a cracking set that miraculously captures the golden age of classic gospel and sanctified southern soul and sounds like a marriage between the original Staple Singers and the Blind Boys of Alabama.