Dec 28, 2024
Roebuck “Pops” Staples (28 December 1914 – 19 December 2000)
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Maldives
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Belgium
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from Germany
Roebuck “Pops” Staples (28 December 1914 – 19 December 2000)
Sometimes you watch a movie and fall into a rabbit hole. Like how I'm just watching True Stories, David Byrne's musical satire about the weirdness of suburban living and the sensationalist silliest of tabloid news, and then somehow that leads me looking up what the heck the song "Papa Legba" is about and finding it links back to a vodou loa spirit seen as the gatekeeper to the afterlife and some believe he invented fucking blues and rock and roll by giving it to Robert Johnson at the crossroads, and the film apparently references that by having a voodoo priest (Played by Roebuck "Pops" Staples) call upon him to bestow John Goodman with the confidence and musical inspiration to sing a beautiful song that makes a woman fall in love with him.
What the fuck is this movie?
The Staple Singers - Let's Do It Again
In a hotel room in Detroit, a 78-year-old woman is rasping down the phone. She can’t quite hear every word I say, as she spent last night in a loud theatre with her old boyfriend, Bob: “We talk about old times.” Bob is Bob Dylan; Mavis Staples supported him on his most recent American tour.
Dylan asked Staples to marry him in 1964, shortly after they had kissed for the first time at the Newport folk festival; she said no, feeling that back then she couldn’t marry a white man. “That’s a long time ago,” she says, in a clipped, no-nonsense fashion, shutting down any discussion of rekindled romance. “These days, we just play and go back to our own lives. We’re old now. As soon as the gig’s over, I’m going to bed to sleep.”
Staples started making music with her family band, the Staple Singers, in 1948 before pop music really existed, but pop musicians are still clamouring to work with her in 2017. This year, she has featured on records by Arcade Fire and Gorillaz, and released her own album, If All I Was Was Black, its title track a simple, profoundly moving song about racism. (“If all I was was black / Don’t you wanna know me more than that?”)
“This record is all about hope,” Staples explains. Her voice is guttural and deep – that famous huskiness is something she has had since her childhood. “How we can come together and fix things, and build bridges. If everyone heard these songs, whatever the colour of their skin, they’d fall in love with each other.” [Read More]
La chanteuse Mavis Staples en 2017. CHRIS STRONG PHOTOGRAPHY Mavis Staples, voix sacrée de la protestation La chanteuse de gospel et de soul, militante historique du mouvement des droits civiques, publie « If All I Was Was Black ». Bruno Lesprit , Le Monde, le 28.12.2017 : Longtemps, Mavis Staples n’avait osé imaginer qu’elle verrait de son vivant un Noir s’installer un jour dans le bureau Ovale. Et encore moins qu’un « dingue » lui succéderait. « Il n’est pas possible que ce type soit président des Etats-Unis, dit calmement, en reposant son thé dans un hôtel londonien, la chanteuse américaine de gospel, de passage pour enregistrer une émission de l’animateur-musicien Jools Holland. Il se conduit comme un gamin, comme eux, il ne cesse de mentir. Il lui faudrait un baby-sitter. Si Martin Luther King était là, il nous rassemblerait pour une marche sur Washington afin d’expulser cet homme de la Maison Blanche. Moi, je ne suis pas une oratrice, tout ce que je peux faire, c’est chanter et prier. » Alors, Mavis Staples a décidé de reprendre les choses au début en publiant, à 78 ans, If All I Was Was Black (« Si je n’étais que Noire »), un album qui marque son retour à la forme du protest song, qui semblait n’avoir survécu qu’à travers le hip-hop. Elle a toute légitimité pour le faire en tant que militante historique du mouvement des droits civiques. Martin Luther King était l’ami de son père, Roebuck – dit « Pops » – Staples (1914-2000), et l’ensemble vocal que celui-ci avait fondé avec trois de ses enfants à Chicago à la fin des années 1940 ouvrait les meetings du pasteur. Mavis Staples, chanteuse : « Je ne pense pas qu’on puisse faire changer d’avis les électeurs de Trump, car tout indique qu’ils pensent comme lui » Repérée au temple avec sa projection qui couvrait les autres choristes, la cadette a commencé sa carrière à l’âge de 10 ans au sein des Staple Singers. Sous le logo de Stax, le label de Memphis qui a révélé Otis Redding, la popularité du quartet atteindra un pic aux Etats-Unis au début des années 1970 lorsque son gospel se teintera de soul. Ailleurs, beaucoup découvriront la soliste grâce à The Last Waltz (1978), le film de Martin Scorsese consacré aux adieux du groupe The Band. Les Staples chantent ‘The Weight’ avec les Canado-Américains, et Mavis irradie l’écran... Mavis Staples, voix sacrée de la protestation - Le Monde
Bruce Langhorne, an intuitive guitarist who played a crucial role in the transition from folk music to folk-rock, notably through his work with Bob Dylan, died on Friday at his home in Venice, Calif. He was 78.
A close friend, Cynthia Riddle, said the cause was kidney failure.
From his pealing lead guitar on “Maggie’s Farm” to his liquid electric guitar lines on “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “She Belongs to Me,” Mr. Langhorne was best known for his playing on Mr. Dylan’s landmark 1965 album, “Bringing It All Back Home.” He also contributed hypnotic countermelodies to tracks like “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
“Bringing It All Back Home” proved a harbinger of ’60s folk-rock. Mr. Langhorne’s empathetic accompaniment, always stressing feeling over flash, animated all 11 of the album’s tracks.
In his 2004 memoir, “Chronicles,” Mr. Dylan said of Mr. Langhorne, “If you had Bruce playing with you, that’s all you would need to do just about anything.”
Mr. Dylan credited Mr. Langhorne with inspiring “Mr. Tambourine Man,”recalling in 1985 that the song came to him after seeing Mr. Langhorne arrive for a 1964 recording session with an oversize Turkish drum arrayed with bells. (“In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you,” Mr. Dylan sang.)
Mr. Langhorne had not set out to become a guitar player. A student of the violin, he had to forgo a career in classical music after losing two fingers and most of the thumb on his right hand in an accident involving homemade fireworks when he was 12. He took up the guitar at 17, developing a unique call-and-response approach to the instrument.
“Since I have fingers missing, some styles of guitar playing were forever unreachable for me,” he told an interviewer. “I really needed someone who had a thread going to really do my job,” he continued, alluding to his musical collaborators. “Because then they could generate a couple of lines of polyphony, or a rhythmic structure, and then I could enhance that.” [Read More]
Remembering Roebuck "Pops" Staples from The Staple Singers
(December 28, 1914-December 19, 2000)
Why Am I treated so Bad? (Staples Singers cover)
Cannonball Adderley Quintet
Live at Liederhalle in Stuttgart, 1969 March 20
Joe Zawinuls keyboard work is awesome