They just got a miraculous second wind.
You see, as under-the-radar legends go, the Staples Jr. Singers are secretly famous. However, their famousness has pivoted on very little: one vinyl record that was virtually impossible to lay hands upon—even back in 1975, when a tiny batch of When Do We Get Paid was pressed. Back then, you could have purchased a copy in Aberdeen, Mississippi, directly from the Brown family, who were selling them right from their front yard. The album became a cratedigger’s dream of a find.
Because once you dropped a needle onto that needle-in-a-haystack, the sound lifting off snapped your curiosity to attention. The distinctively downhome gospel brewed with a funk tint and bellbottomed soul haunted as much as it mystified. But then nothing else arrived from them. The signal went cold. Silence ever since.
Well, the bolt just now arrived from out of the blue. Forty-nine years, you must admit, has been a long, hard wait, making Searching a fantastic sight for sore eyes and a celebration for starved ears. Edward, R.C., and their sister Annie remain as the core. Then, they sang as teenagers; now, they’re in their 60s. Yet that mystifying sound of theirs has only grown more haunting with age.
Searching—more so than When Do We Get Paid, which thankfully was reissued in 2022—is not your typical anything, creating an atmosphere that sets its own terms. Messagewise, it is Sunday morning. Groovewise, it’s a different story, however. Saturday night still very much reigns. Late, late Saturday night. Namely, those bewitching hours when murky, heavy-lidded juggernauts simmer and smolder in perpetual slow burn, achieving their designed goal by seeping in and then calmly, coolly detonating. The result is habit forming.
Pure feel takes over, carrying songs beyond their lyrics into genuine emotion. There is no strain to find meaning in the words Edward uses when wading through a deeply entrancing “Lost In a World of Sin.” The authenticity of spirit in Annie’s ominous “Living in This World Alone” is ironclad. And when R.C. reprises “Get On Board,” the same swaying song which opened their debut, the natural, shaky crack in his voice thoroughly humbles and humanizes the message. Recording live in The Message Center, a dinky, windowless brick hut that serves as a church in West Point, Mississippi, brilliantly fostered instinct and impulse.
The instruments—guitars, Hammond organ, bass, some tranquil vibes, a set of drums whose cymbal splashes come straight out of the juke joint—are set back, working away while floating in the echoey void. That way the whole experience becomes transportive and hypnotic. You believe “Walk Around Heaven” and “Don’t Need No Doctor” are poised between this world and the next, as a steel guitar paints their celestial backgrounds. Heaven knows the Staples Jr. Singers do not need much to mesmerize, as the simple chanted lines of “I’ve Got a Feeling” cast their spell. So, when Edward asks “Did you feel it?” after a heavenly crescendo sweeps him up during a full-faced meeting between him and his Maker, you’re apt to nod in the affirmative at “I Don’t Need Nobody But You,” having fallen under the power of the music.
Whether they know it or not, the Staples Jr. Singers have, over the course of now only two long-play records—five decades apart—created and cemented a style, a self-contained world. They are their own subgenre. And Searching serves as a godsend of a gateway back into that realm.
Label: Luaka Bop
Release Date: 6/14/24
Artist Website: juniorsingers.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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