The Staple Singers, whose gospel-folk performances at rallies, church services and MLK speeches preceded their ’70s crossover hits, and their leader, the late Roebuck “Pops” Staples, both are featured on new historical albums.
On Tuesday, Sony will release a complete version of a church service featuring the Staple Singers recorded just after the 1965 Selma marches and released on LP in in their wake. Freedom Highway Complete: Live at Chicago’s New Nazareth Church, captures a service at a Baptist parish near their home on April 9, during which the group sang traditional gospel tunes, including We Shall Overcome, Take My Hand Precious Lord and When the Saints Go Marching In, and their newly composed song about the marches, Freedom Highway.
A deeper exploration of Pops’ influential guitar-playing and singing (the Singers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999) is found on the just-released Don’t Lose This, a collection of songs from his final recording sessions done in the months before his death in 2000.
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