It’s impossible to discuss the Staple Singers’ 1965 live album Freedom Highway without considering what was going down in America that year. On March 7, more than 600 marchers set out to make the 50-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and were attacked by Alabama state troopers and armed posses. Two days later, they tried again, but turned back when Governor George Wallace denied them state protection. Two long weeks later, they tried a third time, with federal protection from the US Army and the National Guard. It took them three days, but they finally reached the state capitol.
Just a few weeks later and several hundred miles north, one of the hottest groups on the gospel circuit debuted a new song during a service at the New Nazareth Church on Chicago’s South Side. Pops Staples, patriarch and bandleader of the formidable Staple Singers, explained the inspiration in his introduction. "From that march, word was revealed and a song was composed," he explains, sounding less like a preacher addressing his congregation and more like a close friend shaking your hand. "And we wrote a song about the freedom marchers and we call it the ‘Freedom Highway’, and we dedicate this number to all the freedom marchers." As he is addressing the congregation, Pops strikes a clutch of chords on his guitar, and those chords coalesce into a spry blues riff that he sends rolling down the aisles of New Nazareth.
Then Al Duncan enters on drums, his rhythm a little funkier and more physical than you might expect in such a godly setting; Phil Upchurch lays down an elastic bass line, and the syncopated clatter of handclaps completes the rhythm section. Just as the song is taking off, the Staple Singers—Pops and his kids Pervis, Yvonne, and Mavis—shout the chorus: "Marching… up freedom highway, marching… each and every day." Mavis sings lead on the verses, her voice lunging at the low notes and filling every space in the sanctuary. Despite the worry in the lyrics ("The whole wide world is wonderin’ what’s wrong with the United States"), the family does not sound concerned or beaten down or fatigued in any way. Rather, "Freedom Highway" is pure jubilation, as though the Staples are celebrating that third march to Montgomery, confident in the righteousness of their cause. With God on their side, how could they fail?
Recording the performance that day was producer Billy Sherrill, who edited the songs for radio play, then rearranged them for the Staples’ first live album, Freedom Highway. Instead of coming halfway through the performance, the title track opened the first side, announcing Pops’ intentions of connecting gospel music with the struggle for civil rights. It was the family’s biggest hit to date, a pivotal record that inched them toward the pop mainstream without sacrificing their gospel message for a secular audience. In that regard, the New Nazareth concert proves a pivotal event not just for the family, but for pop music in general—just as crucial as anything that happened at Woodstock or Monterey, albeit not as storied or as celebrated. Somehow, the record slipped out of print and has been unavailable for decades. (An excellent 1991 compilation bears the same title but includes only two tracks from the album among contemporaneous studio and live recordings.)
To mark the 50th anniversary of the freedom marches as well as the Staples’ performance, the New Nazareth concert has been remastered and restored to its original setlist and runtime, complete with a short sermon by Rev. Dr. John E. Hopkins, a benediction, and even a guilt-motivated offertory ("We got less than 75 dollars here. You know this is not right.") As a historical artifact, it is invaluable for what it reveals about gospel performances of the era, even if the proceedings fall into a lull whenever the singing gives way to talking. That’s true of so many church services, though, especially those you don’t actually get to attend.
This remaster, however, emphasizes the bustle of the congregation, lending the proceedings a you-are-there intimacy. You can hear every cough and mutter, every rifle of a Bible page, and every amen. In this vivid setting, the songs take on new power. Pervis’s recitation of Hank Williams’ "The Funeral" sounds more intensely melancholy, as though he is not quite convinced of God’s mysterious motivations but is surrendering to Him nonetheless. You can hear Pops joking with his son-in-law just before he launches into "Samson and Delilah", and his good spirits inject the song with a vivid snap.
And this version restores the original sequencing, so that "Freedom Highway" is immediately preceded by "We Shall Overcome", which was a familiar standard that had taken on new relevance for African Americans during the 1960s. It’s a sly bit of programming by Pops, as it primes the audience to respond enthusiastically to a tune they do not know. Yet, "Freedom Highway" is a very different song, one that is less concerned with someday and more interested in today. It was Pops’ way of marking a victory, of saying they were already in the process of overcoming.
Even if he was often overshadowed by his daughter Mavis, whose voice often sounded like the hand of God parting the clouds, Pops was definitely the leader of the group and the head of the family. Even as they won mainstream success, trading choir robes for Afros and churches for concert halls, he kept them rooted in gospel and focused on a spiritual message. He also became an influence on several generations of guitarists—including Robbie Robertson of the Band and John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival—who mimicked Pops’s nimble melodic lines and distinctive tremolo. Shortly before he died in 2000, he recorded a handful of new and old songs, just him and his guitar, and he must have been pleased with the results, because he entrusted the tapes with his daughters with the request, "Don’t lose this."
Mavis held on to them for 15 years, before asking Jeff Tweedy to complete them. To his credit the Wilco frontman brings to these songs the same restraint he showed on You Are Not Alone and One True Vine. He never crowds the performances with extraneous elements or modern touches; in fact, he is largely invisible on Don’t Lose This, occasionally playing bass and generally trusting Pops and his guitar to speak as clearly now as they did in 1998 or in 1965. Spencer Tweedy plays drums on a few songs and proves himself to be as sensitive a sideman here as he did on last year’s Sukierae. His beats on "No News Is Good News" and "Somebody Was Watching" have a textural quality that accentuates the songs’ genial funk, and he knows exactly where to put the downbeat so that it complements Pops’ vocals. Spencer may be one of the best and most interesting drummers around, but he also knows this is someone else’s show.
As a result, Don’t Lose This sounds like an excellent entry point for newcomers and casual fans, a gateway to exploring the Staples’ vast catalog. Without sounding like a career retrospective, the album revisits the straightforward gospel of the '50s and '60s as well as the sunshine funk of the '70s, all the while playing up the humane optimism in Pops’ vocals. Songs like "Sweet Home" and "Love on My Side" may depict men at their lowest points—steeped in self-pity, pickled with booze, distant from God—but they are cautionary tales: Any of us could end up in a similar situation, lonely and despairing but never undeserving of redemption.
Still, this is a Pops album in name only. At its core, it may be the final Staple Singers record. His children—including Cleotha, who died in 2013—feature prominently on many of these songs, harmonizing as sweetly as ever in the background and occasionally even taking lead. It’s bracing to hear them sing together again, especially on a song like "Sweet Home", which plays up their individual styles. Pops’ vocals are steady and measured, exuding the quiet authority of a man confident that he’ll see heaven. But Mavis’ voice flutters around his in a perfectly controlled gospel melisma that mimics the motion and expressive tone of a reed instrument. For a lesser singer, her performance might sound ostentatious or overbearing, but for Mavis, it sounds natural and fluid, a perfect complement to her father’s performance.
Perhaps the standout on Don’t Lose This is "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", an old Baptist hymn popularized in the 1930s by another pop music patriarch, A.P. Carter. The Staples covered the song in the '60s, but 40 years will change anyone’s perspective on life and death. Chronicling the funeral of a beloved parent, the song poses the important question, Will the bonds of family persist beyond this world? On the new version Pops manages to gently interpret the song, singing not from the point of view of a child losing a parent, but from the perspective of a parent singing to the children he will leave behind. Even if it’s not the last song on the album, it sounds like a final statement, one last bit of wisdom from a man who showed us the spiritual potential in pop music of all kinds.
