Album: Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples believes We'll Never Turn Back to be the greatest work of her illustrious career - and though her family's Seventies Stax recordings remain unsurpassed, she's undoubtedly correct as regards her solo work, none of which has captured the light and shade of her voice with quite the subtle acuity that producer Ry Cooder achieves here. A collection of Sixties Civil Rights gospel anthems leavened with a couple of new songs, it's in one sense the latest extension of the social(ist) interests tackled on Cooder's Chavez Ravine and My Name is Buddy, featuring his trademark archaeo-musicological renovation of period standards such as "Turn Me Around", "Jesus is on the Mainline" and a funky "This Little Light of Mine". Staples is on peerless form throughout, nowhere more so than on the opening "Down In Mississippi", whose febrile, swampy arrangement, driven by Cooder's rhythmic mandolin and upholstered with Ladysmith Black Mambazo's gospel harmonies, provides an evocative setting for her recollections of the struggle.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Down in Mississippi', 'This Little Light of Mine', 'Turn Me Around'