It Took 50 Years for This Gospel Album to Be Recorded

'When Do We Get Paid' was long lost until Luaka Bop rediscovered the 1975 album by Staples Jr. Singers two years ago. The record reached a classic status soon after. Now, the soul-gospel and funk family band released a new album titled 'Searching': original works written in the mid-70s—recorded for the very first time this year in a small church down south in Mississippi. Let's turn 'Searching' into Finding. Loops and samples, that is.

Tracklib

June 28, 2024

"Nothing records the passage of time quite like the human voice. When R.C. now sings of the road getting rough and the going getting tough, I imagine the words delivered with the bruising gravity of experience. I hear in them not the purpose and naivety of youth but the reflections and insights of age."

—Anton Spice (liner notes for 'Searching')

Archive photo of Staples Jr. Singers around 1975. From left to right: R.C. Brown, Corl Walker, † Cleveland Brown (top row); Annie Brown Caldwell, † Deacon Wordell Andrew, Edward Brown (middle row); † Ronnel Brown (front row). [Photo courtesy of Staples Jr. Singers / Luaka Bop]

"Aside from the roughly €700 that collectors are willing to pay for an original copy of the 'When Do We Get Paid' LP, you can mainly hear 100% vintage gospel and soul. We hear echoes of Sharon Jones (if it were possible, time-machine-wise) and of ultimate funk band The Meters."

—ABConcerts