Staples Singers Great Day

Like the title says, there's more of the same as the first volume, including The Staples Singers, the Original Gospel Harmonettes, Prof. Alex Bradford, the Harmonizing Four, Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers, and more.

Mavis Staples has again joined forces with songwriter-producer Jeff Tweedy for a new album entitled If All I Was Was Black, out this November 17th.

The line dividing black gospel and so-called secular music has always been a thin one, and musicians have rarely been afraid to step over it. In the 1920s, the blind singer “Arizona” Juanita Dranes wed ragtime and boogie—rhythms associated with saloons and barrelhouses—to Holiness movement hymns. Later, Mahalia Jackson, who refused to record secular records, nonetheless achieved massive popularity outside the sanctified confines of the gospel scene. A true pioneer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe scandalized the church by performing in nightclubs, practically inventing rock & roll in the process. By the early 1970s, blockbuster Stax singles by the Staple Singers proved artists could exist comfortably in both worlds, or suggested that perhaps these distinct spheres actually overlapped.

“Making this album felt like a travel in time,” Sheryl Crow tells Apple Music. “There was a lot of reflection involved.” The trailblazing rock icon—whose conversational, subversive megahits helped soundtrack the past three decades—says that her 11th album Threads will be her last. But she isn’t retiring so much as changing gears; from here on, she’ll focus on releasing singles and playing shows. “I am unequivocally not going to stop touring,” she says. “I’ve had a wonderful, long career of making albums. I’m up for something different now.”