‘The Time for Peace is Now: Gospel music about us’ – Various Artists

Review by Joseph Jones

Album art. | Photo: Luaka Bop.

When Pops Staples first got his family together to sing it was at his brother’s church. It was 1948, with all that meant for a black musical group in the USA, even one touring churches: segregation, harrassment and worse. But one of those churches was Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jnr was pastor. ‘When we heard Doctor King preach, we went back to the motel and had a meeting,’ said Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers’ leading voice. ‘Pops said, “Now if he can preach it, we can sing it.”’ They certainly could.

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