The Start up Way

At one level, one would have to be a collector, an Anglophile, or a 1960s pop culture enthusiast to consider this 14-CD set a good deal. In the U.K., the EP ("extended play" single), which contains more tracks than an ordinary single and fewer than an album, has always been a far more popular format than it is in the U.S. During their heyday, the Beatles regularly released EPs in Great Britain, a total of 13 of them, in fact, between June 1963 and December of 1967, and they're all assembled in this box, complete with original art and sleeves in miniature…

The Staple Singers are perhaps best remembered for their period recording for Stax Records in Memphis between 1968 and 1975, where they enjoyed a string of pop, soul and international hits. Here though Jasmine focus on the groups early recordings when they were strictly a religious group steeped in American Gospel traditions. Although the line-up was unusual for the time, male and female groups were not common in Gospel music then, they undoubtedly appealed to the huge number of migrants who had moved to Chicago from the rural south. 'Pops', as he was known, had a guitar style highly reminiscent of the Mississippi blues singers of the 1920s and 30s and the vocal arrangements that he gave the girls were also similar to those of the earliest jubilee style gospel groups of the pre-war years like the Golden Gate Quartet and The Charioteers. Here then are their famous early recordings as released by Vee Jay Records who continued to reissue their repertoire on LP for many years.