Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm re loving playing
Speaker 1: along with Mayvas Staples. I'm just playing long wezy, I'm
Speaker 1: just playing in lone weazy. Hey, I'm Nora and with
Speaker 1: me as always Sarah, Oda. Hi, this was the third
Speaker 1: episode we released back in October twenty twenty two. That's crazy,
Speaker 1: third episode ever. This was so fun. I just love
Speaker 1: Mavis so much. Just some updates. She released her album
Speaker 1: Sad and Beautiful World in November twenty twenty five, with
Speaker 1: two tracks earning Grammy wins in twenty twenty six, and
Speaker 1: she continues to tour through the summer and fall of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six with select US and international dates. So
Speaker 1: be sure to go visit her website Mayviastaples dot com
Speaker 1: see if she's performing near you, because you do not
Speaker 1: want to miss it. She's the best. She's incredible, She's
Speaker 1: still incredible. She's just the best.
Speaker 2: Don't miss it.
Speaker 1: So here's the episode. Today's show is so fun to
Speaker 1: record and pretty emotional. I don't know how you felt
Speaker 1: about it, Oda, but for me, it was very very special.
Speaker 3: I feel like Mayvis Staples is a force, but like
Speaker 3: a very sweet, tender, loving, huggable force.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, like, yeah, she's just an amazing human.
Speaker 1: She is full of love and we love her.
Speaker 3: You cannot be in a bad mood when she's in
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 1: No, And we talk about that a little in this episode,
Speaker 1: about her, her energy and where it comes from. Mayva Staples,
Speaker 1: of course, was part of the Staples Singers.
Speaker 3: Mavis and her family were iconic throughout the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 3: Her father was friends with doctor Martin Luther King Junior,
Speaker 3: and they performed at rallies and protests before his speeches.
Speaker 3: They inspired people when people needed it the most.
Speaker 1: We enjoyed talking to Mavis about her family and the
Speaker 1: dynamic of the Staples Singers, Pops, and of course now
Speaker 1: she's also a solo artist in her own right. She's
Speaker 1: influenced so many people. Everybody loves her and aside from
Speaker 1: the incredible music that she.
Speaker 3: Makes, all the stories that come along with the history
Speaker 3: she's had and the people she's encountered along the way.
Speaker 3: I mean, I could just listen to her talk all
Speaker 3: day long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk about all this and we sing several
Speaker 1: songs together, some that I didn't even know we were
Speaker 1: going to sing in this episode, So that was really fun.
Speaker 1: She just goes with it at all times, and that's
Speaker 1: what's so fun about being around Mavis. I met her
Speaker 1: for the first time in twenty ten when we were
Speaker 1: both honoring Paul McCartney at the Kennedy Center Honors and
Speaker 1: she saw me. We talk about this too, but she
Speaker 1: saw me and she took my hand and she said, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: you be my daughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She just hugged me, and I was just, you know,
Speaker 1: pure love ever since then. So I was so honored
Speaker 1: that Mavis could join me and we could play songs
Speaker 1: together and reconnect. It's been a long time since I'd
Speaker 1: seen her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we recorded this episode at Jeff Tweety's studio
Speaker 3: in Chicago called The Loft, and start off by talking
Speaker 3: about a song that he wrote for her called You
Speaker 3: Are Not Alone.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: So that's the Mayvous corner.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that when I was here.
Speaker 2: You do have a corner, I don't.
Speaker 1: I've been all over the nooks, even in the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I tell you I got my first Grammy
Speaker 2: from here.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, You're not Alone. I was from a staple
Speaker 2: thing just Mayvis. Uh huh, Yeah, that was my favorite.
Speaker 1: That's what the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: It is beautiful, and you and I got down on
Speaker 2: it too in the Apollo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was hoping we could start with it actually,
Speaker 1: just to warm us up. Yeah, okay, no problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the words to that.
Speaker 1: Did whenever he brought it to you, were you moved
Speaker 1: by the lyrics?
Speaker 2: I was just and see what he did. He was
Speaker 2: writing it right here in the studio and I was
Speaker 2: standing over him, and he got through that first verse
Speaker 2: and I chill bumps came up, you know, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden he stopped. I'm waiting for him to
Speaker 2: go into the second verse, and he stopped, and I said,
Speaker 2: what you doing. He says, I need more time, more time,
Speaker 2: he said. I said, oh, tweety, And he said, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have it for you tomorrow. I gotta take it home.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have for you tomorrow. I said, okay, tweet.
Speaker 2: But he gave me the part of the melody, and
Speaker 2: I laid with that the night that I before tonight,
Speaker 2: I was at home, and when I came in the
Speaker 2: next day, he laid it on men. I tell you,
Speaker 2: it just it just hit me. And because at that
Speaker 2: time you know I was feeling alone really yeah. I
Speaker 2: had lost my sister, my oldest sister, and and uh
Speaker 2: my other sister was sick, you know. So the song
Speaker 2: hit me. You know it was for me. It was
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: It feels made for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was made for me. And uh, I love it.
Speaker 2: We sing it every show. We don't go off the
Speaker 2: stage without singing You're not alone.
Speaker 1: I've heard you sing this many many times. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 2: The audience was around the house singing it really well.
Speaker 1: If you feel alone.
Speaker 2: No, I don't really alone. I just love the song.
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay now see I got you, babe.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: I love you two little girl.
Speaker 1: Let's try it.
Speaker 4: You want to try it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love.
Speaker 1: The thing I love about this song is how there's
Speaker 1: harmony the whole way through, and it has that not
Speaker 1: alone feeling it does.
Speaker 2: It's so beautiful and it just and and and it
Speaker 2: makes you feel it's so much better, makes you feel
Speaker 2: like you're just telling the truth. You're not alone. I
Speaker 2: know you're not alone. And I tell you people people
Speaker 2: love it. People as soon as we hit it, they
Speaker 2: go kbang, it's the best hit it.
Speaker 6: You're not alone.
Speaker 4: With you.
Speaker 2: Alone? What's that song? Cany song got you?
Speaker 7: A broken heart, a broken home? I slayed and afraid.
Speaker 2: Open up. This is a raise.
Speaker 8: I want to get it through you.
Speaker 4: You're not a loan, You're not alone.
Speaker 9: Here the read night, I.
Speaker 2: Stand in your place.
Speaker 9: Here the read.
Speaker 5: Whateverythace taste the same.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 7: A broken dream, a broken.
Speaker 6: Heart, I slay it.
Speaker 2: And afraid open up. This is ray. I want to
Speaker 2: get it through you.
Speaker 10: Your not lone, an open hand, an open heart.
Speaker 11: There's no need to be afraid enough.
Speaker 2: This is raid.
Speaker 6: Won'ta get it to you.
Speaker 2: You're not alone? No no, I won't to get.
Speaker 9: It through to.
Speaker 1: You're not alone.
Speaker 2: No no, I'm going.
Speaker 8: To get it through to you, not alone.
Speaker 2: Help me, Oh my god, shelp me. That was pretty thanks.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a beautiful you are. So you played all that.
Speaker 2: There was notes and that and that dumb that dream
Speaker 2: and that beautiful, so beautiful tweety, A broken dream, a
Speaker 2: broken heart.
Speaker 4: It hurts, It hurts over.
Speaker 1: I just love it so much, and I loved Jeff.
Speaker 2: I was so glad you're saying that with me.
Speaker 1: At the Apollo that was really fun.
Speaker 2: And at first they couldn't find the piano.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I played it on a world it'zir right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I prayed, I said, didn't want to get hurt,
Speaker 2: and here they go.
Speaker 1: You prayed for a piano for me. Yeah, I'm honored.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, that was really fun.
Speaker 1: That was your birthday.
Speaker 2: It was my idea. That's crazy. Check that out. Wow,
Speaker 2: you helped me celebrate my birthday.
Speaker 1: That was the second time, because I was with you
Speaker 1: in Newport on one of your birthdays at the folk festival.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that must have been. That must have been
Speaker 2: my seven.
Speaker 1: Year probably, I think I don't know. I can't remember.
Speaker 2: I stopped trying to remember.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how old I am. Sometimes I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but but but who cares.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like any different.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're buds and where this could be
Speaker 1: the same age or you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't my god doesn't feel it doesn't feel very different.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel very different.
Speaker 1: Though you've gotten more experienced than me.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, yes, and I.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm I'm the old girl. I'm just I'm
Speaker 2: the seniors. I'm the golden girl, But I'm hanging with
Speaker 2: young blood.
Speaker 1: You are, and people love you. Young people love you.
Speaker 2: That makes me feel it's you know.
Speaker 1: You walk into the room and you make me feel young.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you just bring the sunshine with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really makes me feel good that the young adults.
Speaker 2: I have one friend who works at Columbia College over here,
Speaker 2: and she teaches, you know, she she just music and
Speaker 2: she tells her students, uh stories, and she lets me know.
Speaker 2: She says, maybes, these kids love you. These kids, Uh no,
Speaker 2: you don't know Hermit Terry hermittt No. Yeah, but she
Speaker 2: she tells me all the time, and it makes me
Speaker 2: feel so good.
Speaker 1: They do though, they love you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well see they see that I'm a kid too,
Speaker 2: you are I am?
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never grown up. In my heart, I'm still
Speaker 2: a little kid, you know. And I just I just
Speaker 2: I love to play, I love to sing. I just
Speaker 2: love people. So I love babies. Yeah, Oh man, are
Speaker 2: you take everybody's.
Speaker 1: Bab Are you good with them?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 2: We get on a plane and and and and I
Speaker 2: always take this little bottle of bubbles with me. And
Speaker 2: if some baby is going to cry on that plane,
Speaker 2: and I wait on it. When I hear baby cry,
Speaker 2: I get my bubbles out, find the baby and I
Speaker 2: started blowing bubbles and the baby looks at the bubbles. Mama,
Speaker 2: be so happy that I came along. Yeah, what I'm Bubbles.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's your nickname, right, that's my nickname.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who gave you that nickname?
Speaker 4: Mother?
Speaker 1: Really? Since you're a little girl, since you were little?
Speaker 2: No, not, It wasn't until I was about I wasn't
Speaker 2: thirty yet. I was in my twenties, okay, and uh,
Speaker 2: I asked, I said, Mama, why you call me bubbles?
Speaker 2: She said, maybe it's because you're so bubbly. You're just
Speaker 2: always so happy. You just you know, you just came
Speaker 2: out that way. I came that way.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask that, yeah, where that comes from.
Speaker 1: But I think people who have that just are like that.
Speaker 2: I'm just happy, go lucky all the time.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great way to be.
Speaker 2: It really is. And I'm grateful because but every now
Speaker 2: and then I'll let something get on my nerve. But
Speaker 2: it's got to be strong, yeah, you know, because most
Speaker 2: of the time I overlook it. Whatever, you know, if
Speaker 2: it was supposed to get on my nerve. I can
Speaker 2: overlook it and stay happy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll take some of that, please, Can I
Speaker 1: have some of that's.
Speaker 2: Free of charge.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty happy in general. But I'm not a bubbly person,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like I don't bring the
Speaker 1: sunshine into every room, but I don't get too sad.
Speaker 1: Usually I'm pretty even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have my moment, don't realize it. But you
Speaker 2: do bring the sunshine.
Speaker 1: Well that's kind of you. But I mean, and when
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you bring in the sunshine, you're on
Speaker 1: a hole.
Speaker 2: Well, I come in noisy, noisy cruise. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, And and Prince used to tell me, you said, Mayavies,
Speaker 2: you're talking too loud.
Speaker 1: Really, what a thing to say, he would be.
Speaker 2: I was grateful though, because alsover reflect told me then really,
Speaker 2: but I've always thought, you know, there were five of
Speaker 2: us children in the house. Yeah, And if you want
Speaker 2: to be heard, you gotta let your voice be heard.
Speaker 2: I was just I come from a noisy crew, just
Speaker 2: like I.
Speaker 1: Say, Allah family, noisy, that's what it's about, right.
Speaker 2: Right, And I'm I'm just grateful. I know I should
Speaker 2: talk softer and saved my.
Speaker 1: I think at this point, you're good. Did they say
Speaker 1: that out of concern for your singing voice? Yeah, oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I get that, but if it hadn't been
Speaker 1: a problem yet, right then, right.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about all my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a problem.
Speaker 2: But I guess they were just used to being around
Speaker 2: people who talked under their voice.
Speaker 1: Yes, and now I was surprised his voice, so Mayavis Prince.
Speaker 1: He had a little speaking voice, right, yeah. I met
Speaker 1: him once, but he did he and he was very
Speaker 1: soft spoken. He was, he was, and he observed a lot,
Speaker 1: right yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah. I took him to I said, Brians,
Speaker 2: it's just gonna have to make you my son. Al right, Bavies,
Speaker 2: I'll be your son. And I loved hear him talk
Speaker 2: because his voice was just raw. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 2: when he sing, you know, it was a heavy voice
Speaker 2: when he sing too, but to talk. I saw him
Speaker 2: do an interview with Arsenio Hall one time, and man,
Speaker 2: his voice or Senior was shocked. He was shocked too.
Speaker 2: But some people talk in a different voice than they sing.
Speaker 1: My kids told me that when they hear my voice singing,
Speaker 1: they think I sound different. When I'm just home, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you telling them to.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they tell you said, yes, your boy, your
Speaker 2: singing voice is very mellow and sweet and soft and
Speaker 2: and and you you could make a person hurt themselves
Speaker 2: because you just you just calm you down. You said.
Speaker 2: When I first heard.
Speaker 1: What's the name, oh don't know why, I don't know why.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I first don't know, don't know why. I was
Speaker 2: around the house doing something and that came on the radio,
Speaker 2: and I stopped whatever I was doing. I had to
Speaker 2: stop and listen. And then the next time, I said,
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful song. Next time I heard it, Uh,
Speaker 2: I saw you. You were on television and I was
Speaker 2: walking around the house again. The TV was on and
Speaker 2: you came on and I said, it's a song I
Speaker 2: saw you. I said, oh my goodness, started singing it,
Speaker 2: and it's just been one of my favorites all time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: My friend Jesse Harris wrote that song. Really, he was
Speaker 1: in my band and he wrote the song.
Speaker 2: I thought you wrote it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people think I wrote it. But I wrote a
Speaker 1: few songs on that album, but I didn't really get
Speaker 1: deep into songwriting until a little bit later.
Speaker 2: Is that right, Yeah, well, you sing it like you
Speaker 2: wrote it.
Speaker 1: I think you have to, don't you. You have to
Speaker 1: feel like you own the song to really deliver it,
Speaker 1: even if you didn't come up with it right. And
Speaker 1: that's what you do with the Jeff Twitty song. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's what you do with every song. I mean,
Speaker 1: really do what you have to do?
Speaker 2: You really do. You've got to from your heart. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's got to come from your heart if you you
Speaker 2: want to deliver it and you want people to get
Speaker 2: it and feel it and react from it the way
Speaker 2: you have That's what's the way you gotta do.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 2: Pop's always told me. We were in New York one
Speaker 2: time about I was about thirteen years old, and these
Speaker 2: kids sing before us and they were just jumping all
Speaker 2: across the stage and singing loud. So when it was
Speaker 2: time for us to sing, I did that, yeah, and
Speaker 2: my father snatched me off the stage. He said, what
Speaker 2: is wrong with you? Made Wow? He said, what are
Speaker 2: you doing? I said, I'm just singing.
Speaker 12: Dad.
Speaker 2: He said, maybe let me tell you something. You don't
Speaker 2: your music don't need a gimmick. You don't need a gimmick.
Speaker 2: You know, you sing from your heart. Sing what comes
Speaker 2: from the heart, reaches the heart. And that's the way
Speaker 2: I've never forgotten it, never, you know. And he said,
Speaker 2: you don't be you don't have to clown. You don't
Speaker 2: need to give me. I was drying the kids. They
Speaker 2: were jumping across the stage. Yeah, singing loud and uh,
Speaker 2: he says, the uh. You singing sacred music. You don't
Speaker 2: need any gimmick, singing from your heart. If you sing
Speaker 2: from your heart, you'll reach the people.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I also, I think his voice
Speaker 1: also had that mellow, easy going.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wasn't trying to sing over anybody, but you had
Speaker 1: to lean in to hear it.
Speaker 3: And then it hit.
Speaker 2: You right right. And you're the same way. You know.
Speaker 2: You laid back. I don't know, I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but you are. I'm just so proud to know you,
Speaker 2: a little lad.
Speaker 1: I'm proud to know you. I met you at the
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center for the first time. Yeah, and you took
Speaker 1: my hands and you saw I was nervous.
Speaker 2: I remember, you.
Speaker 1: Knew I was nervous.
Speaker 2: I knew you. Yeah, you can tell. I could tell.
Speaker 1: So you took me and you held me.
Speaker 2: Did said, I got to protect this little girl.
Speaker 1: I was like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I came on down there and got you have
Speaker 2: just stand right by me and we held hands all
Speaker 2: through that finale.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was so fun and it was so special
Speaker 1: meeting you there.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that was a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2: A good time. Anytime I see your name, I flare up.
Speaker 2: You know that could go either way. And I was
Speaker 2: seeing you. I was seeing you so much like you
Speaker 2: told me yesterday, said that was Christmas. But Christmas needed you.
Speaker 2: I was, it really needed you.
Speaker 1: You know what I needed Christmas last year, and that's
Speaker 1: why I made a Christmas album because I needed I
Speaker 1: needed a little joyful something to feel right good.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you made that album because they were
Speaker 2: a feature in you all week, all day, every hour.
Speaker 1: Under again it's a Christmas exhaustion.
Speaker 2: Oh it was beautiful.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: We recorded the song from Your Christmas The Staples Singers
Speaker 1: Christmas album we did the twenty fifth day of December.
Speaker 2: Did you.
Speaker 1: I'll send it to you. It wasn't It wasn't on
Speaker 1: the album, but it was a bonus track. Oh please,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like we made it. It was so
Speaker 1: Your version is so good. It was hard to beat it.
Speaker 1: But it's great. It's still a great version, and it's
Speaker 1: a great I loved your I listen to your Christmas album.
Speaker 2: A lot, really record, Yeah really, and that was so
Speaker 2: many years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, but it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful album. And and and Pops he wrote
Speaker 2: the song there was a Star he did. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: wrote that and uh, oh my god. You for a
Speaker 2: long time, you couldn't find it. We couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: Oh, they had to reissue it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And and the Blind Boys they did some songs
Speaker 2: from that album. But I got it here twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: That was my favorite. It was maybewhere my table to May,
Speaker 2: July all good, September, October, No, it was last money
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, fifth day of December.
Speaker 2: Did I leave it or not?
Speaker 1: I mean I kept saying when we were recording it,
Speaker 1: I kept saying the twenty second, twenty first day of December,
Speaker 1: just because it rolled off my tongue right, and my
Speaker 1: drummer Brian, but he goes, Nora. I think that's when Larry,
Speaker 1: you gotta get right. It's the twenty fifth day in December,
Speaker 1: not the twenty first day.
Speaker 4: Jesus birthday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't get that one right, No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and props brought that. Tell me when was Jesus burn,
Speaker 2: last Mone of the year. When was in Jesus.
Speaker 9: Born, last mon of the year?
Speaker 2: When one bone.
Speaker 6: Last mon?
Speaker 3: Yead?
Speaker 2: You got January? Sidyway my.
Speaker 6: June to lie?
Speaker 2: Oh good, septill Myctober.
Speaker 12: No, it was twenty fifth delty sam boy.
Speaker 4: It was the last money.
Speaker 2: Born by the Virgin Mary.
Speaker 6: Last money.
Speaker 13: He was born by the Virgin Mary. Last money born
Speaker 13: by the Virgin Mary.
Speaker 9: Last money.
Speaker 2: We got January?
Speaker 6: Uh huh, February, yeah, May, June.
Speaker 2: July all good, September No, No, it was the twenty
Speaker 2: fifth de d somebody it was.
Speaker 4: The last money.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 6: Thought it was fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Yeah, well we're having Christmas today.
Speaker 1: That's right. I love the end of that song, last
Speaker 1: Mother the so how low can you go? How low
Speaker 1: can you go?
Speaker 2: I didn't go down? Oh my god, I didn't go down.
Speaker 2: Whoa how low can you go? I can go down
Speaker 2: very low?
Speaker 1: That is amazing. But did you you like that when
Speaker 1: you were younger?
Speaker 2: You know, my voice was so heavy always, and I
Speaker 2: get I take it from my mother and my grandmother.
Speaker 2: They had strong voices, but I would Yeah. When I
Speaker 2: was a kid, it was my voice is higher. Now
Speaker 2: when I get my tonsils removed, Oh really, it got higher.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's so weird. Oh yeah, I be. I would fight.
Speaker 2: Kids would tell me you sound like a boy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And when we started traveling, if I called down for breakfast,
Speaker 2: the lady would say yes, mister Staples, yes, sir. And
Speaker 2: I heard it so much the less time. I said
Speaker 2: I'm a lady and they said, oh, I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's always been. Uh, I've always had a
Speaker 2: heavy voice. And and I used to sing bass our
Speaker 2: first record, you know Sten Well the will the Willow
Speaker 2: who that's insane?
Speaker 1: And how old were you?
Speaker 2: I was a kid. I was like like nine years old.
Speaker 1: That's when uncloudy Day came.
Speaker 2: Oh no, and cloudy Day came when I was thirteen
Speaker 2: twelve thirteen. But but they wanted to record us when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, and Pops wouldn't allow it. The
Speaker 2: president of VJ Records, Vivian Carter, she called Daddy. She said,
Speaker 2: she says, stay those kids, y'all need to be on record,
Speaker 2: And Pop said, well, Vivian, I don't know nothing about
Speaker 2: those records, you know, he was all of us were green.
Speaker 2: We didn't, you know. And he said, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: let my children get on those records.
Speaker 1: He was afraid because you were too young, right, he didn't.
Speaker 2: Know what business of it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And my sister Yvonne, she would go, she would and
Speaker 2: got books. She got this big read book, this business
Speaker 2: and music. She learned. She helped him a lot.
Speaker 9: Really.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she got that book and help you guys
Speaker 1: figure out. That's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she sure did. She stayed right with him, you know,
Speaker 2: booking and and she taught him a lot. But also
Speaker 2: people like the Solisters and and uh sister Maya Jackson,
Speaker 2: they were already recording and they would tell Daddy different things,
Speaker 2: you know, they would tell him, you know, what to
Speaker 2: do and how.
Speaker 1: To do and watch out for this.
Speaker 2: So when I was about twelve, Pops called Vivian and
Speaker 2: told her. He said, okay, Vivian, we'll make that recognized
Speaker 2: that my children.
Speaker 1: And after he'd read the book, yeah, yeah, he felt good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Pops. Pops didn't know, you know, we
Speaker 2: didn't we were just singing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He used to sing with an all male group six guys,
Speaker 2: and these guys wouldn't come to rehearsal, so possibly be frustrated.
Speaker 2: He'd come home mad.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 2: He came home that third time and he went in
Speaker 2: the closet, pulled out a little guitar that he had.
Speaker 2: We didn't even know he had a guitar.
Speaker 1: He couldn't play it.
Speaker 2: He could play it. He couldn't have all the strings,
Speaker 2: but he could make it sound good. And he told
Speaker 2: my aunt Katy, he said, I'm gonna sing with my children.
Speaker 2: He called all of us into the living room, sit
Speaker 2: us down on the floor in the circle, and begin
Speaker 2: giving us voices that he and his sisters and brothers
Speaker 2: used to sing when they were in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: People thought we were old people when we were We
Speaker 2: would go places and they just knew we were old.
Speaker 2: They heard us, and because because we had a little
Speaker 2: radio fifteen minute radio show Sunday morning and we were singing,
Speaker 2: and they thought we were old people. Because Pops, we
Speaker 2: were singing those old voices like his sisters and brothers.
Speaker 2: We would walk in little stairsteps and he said, that's
Speaker 2: the stables singing.
Speaker 1: Its old already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but that's yeah, he would give us those voices,
Speaker 2: and and that's how we started singing. My aunt Katie
Speaker 2: lived with us, okay, and she came through one night.
Speaker 2: She says, y'all sound pretty good.
Speaker 1: And my church son, had you already been singing in
Speaker 1: church your whole lives?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, we've been singing. We hadn't do as the family,
Speaker 2: we hadn't been singing in church. We didn't start. We
Speaker 2: started doing programs at churches. But but uh, my sister
Speaker 2: and brother were in the young people's choir. I was
Speaker 2: too young to go.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so you didn't really sing much until he
Speaker 1: started doing that.
Speaker 2: Until he started us singing, what's your order?
Speaker 1: There's five of you kids, I'm you're the baby. Yeah, okay, bubbles,
Speaker 1: I get it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm the baby. Oh no, Cynthia, I was the
Speaker 2: baby for twelve years. Oh wow. And my baby sister
Speaker 2: came along, and you know, I didn't like how did that?
Speaker 2: I didn't like that I would be putting diapers on
Speaker 2: that baby and I stick up. Mama said maybe you
Speaker 2: were sticking that. I said, no, ma'am, mama. But Cynthia
Speaker 2: and I became the best of friends. We became the
Speaker 2: I called her blessed and she called me Rabil. She
Speaker 2: couldn't say my name Rabel, and and uh oh, but
Speaker 2: she was, uh yeah, she was, she was. I told Papa,
Speaker 2: I said, we got to put Cynthia. She would sing
Speaker 2: songs with us when we were in Chicago at the
Speaker 2: different churches, you know. But yes, Cynthia. And see, Mama
Speaker 2: and Daddy, they were just my mother was heavy set,
Speaker 2: so I never knew she was pregnant, you know.
Speaker 1: She just happened.
Speaker 2: I didn't know where this baby came from. And they
Speaker 2: told me, h to'stify me. Uh because when my mother
Speaker 2: came home, she didn't bring the baby. She had to
Speaker 2: leave the baby there. And and and and Mama said,
Speaker 2: you go with with with Roebuck, get to pick up
Speaker 2: the baby. I said, what baby? Baby?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And uh and they started telling me that we had
Speaker 2: this baby. And so they let me name her. They did,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Cynthia Marie, that's.
Speaker 11: Her.
Speaker 2: Oh boy. And see because what happened. My father he
Speaker 2: would he would he wouldn't, he wouldn't pass me up.
Speaker 2: He goes straight to that baby of bed or wherever
Speaker 2: she was. And and blowing he used to blow in
Speaker 2: my stomach, make me laugh, tore me up in the
Speaker 2: air when he'd come from work and all that stopped.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and and so somebody should have been around
Speaker 2: to talk to him, let him know he was supposed
Speaker 2: to keep doing that.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I grew up an only child, so it's like just
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what it was like being in
Speaker 1: a family, Like.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, it was good being in them. We
Speaker 2: we uh, we would have we would disagree, we didn't
Speaker 2: have any We fussed sometimes, but Mama would tell us,
Speaker 2: don't do that. You have to love your sister, and
Speaker 2: and that's your sister. And you all make up apologizing
Speaker 2: me up. But you know, Yvonne and Cleatye they would
Speaker 2: do most.
Speaker 9: Of the argience.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because they were the close older they were.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, yea.
Speaker 1: Whenever you guys were traveling, when how old were you
Speaker 1: when you started really traveling around and touring?
Speaker 2: I guess, but oh yes, we were touring.
Speaker 1: We were How old were you in that start?
Speaker 2: I was, I was like about thirteen. Wow, the day
Speaker 2: was a hit.
Speaker 1: It was a hit, and you were thirteen years old?
Speaker 2: Uncoudy day this woman called pop, she says, Staples this
Speaker 2: record is selling like an R and B. And it
Speaker 2: turned out that it was the first gospel record to
Speaker 2: sell a million. That's insane.
Speaker 9: It was.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was the first gospel and and and uh.
Speaker 2: But but we would we would be We would go
Speaker 2: to down South, we would go to Milwaukee, Gary, all
Speaker 2: around Chicago and sing and and people would bet the
Speaker 2: disc jockey when we want to New Orleans, Memphis. The
Speaker 2: dis jockey would get on the radio and say, this
Speaker 2: is little Mayvid Staple. This little girl is singing this.
Speaker 2: People would bet that I was not a little.
Speaker 1: Girl, yeah, because you had that deep I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying, well, well, will oh, yeah, lord, they tell me now,
Speaker 2: and I got a home at home, and can you
Speaker 2: know I'm a little girl, a little skinny girl.
Speaker 1: And you're short now, so you're probably I was shorter.
Speaker 2: I was even shorter. But but but yeah, they would bet.
Speaker 2: And what we would do, we would fool the people.
Speaker 2: We would sing Uncody Dady down in harmony. Whoa They
Speaker 2: tell me all of that and then get to the
Speaker 2: end of it, and I come in with will will
Speaker 2: will oh. So what happened was my brother At that
Speaker 2: people would be sitting on they been all of these
Speaker 2: people that bet that I am not a little girl,
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, perverse move my brother like
Speaker 2: he's gonna say, and you'd hear the people. I told
Speaker 2: you that wasn't no little girl. I told you that
Speaker 2: one and I'm easy. Then how easy it to the mic?
Speaker 2: And they look up and it's really a little girls? Oh,
Speaker 2: we had so much fun with that.
Speaker 1: But that's so fun travel with your family. Did it
Speaker 1: ever get sticky?
Speaker 4: Nah?
Speaker 2: No, you always anything, even throughout. So he got older,
Speaker 2: all of it, all of it. The only only thing
Speaker 2: Evonne Clete would argue about saying was what to wear.
Speaker 2: One of them wanted to wear this, and one of
Speaker 2: them wanted to wear that. And because you know my brother,
Speaker 2: he left the group in nineteen sixty nine. It hurt
Speaker 2: me so bad, really, because Purvis and I we had
Speaker 2: this clap. Nobody could do that clap the way we would,
Speaker 2: and he just got grown a man, you know me,
Speaker 2: and they get tired of doing what their father tell
Speaker 2: them to do. You know, he wanted to be his
Speaker 2: own man. Because Pop's are asking. Pop said, perr, you
Speaker 2: sure you don't want to just take a leave of accident, No, daddy, Nope,
Speaker 2: I quit done, and just as he quit, I'll take
Speaker 2: you there hit. Oh, and his friends would would mess
Speaker 2: with him. He go into one of their bars or whatever,
Speaker 2: and they put a quard in the juke box and
Speaker 2: play take You There. Said, y'all shouldn't do that jo. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he did, all right, he he he managed the
Speaker 2: emotions for a while.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So he got into the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, he was still in the business. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: was still in the other side of it, right right.
Speaker 2: They were. They were gospel singers at first, and they
Speaker 2: were our little friends, the Hutchison Sunbeams, and they wanted
Speaker 2: to sing R and B. And so that's when Purvis
Speaker 2: took them down the stacks, got him a choreographer, tarts steps.
Speaker 2: They had some hits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but that's amazing. I mean, it's amazing to
Speaker 1: me how close you guys stayed and that there was
Speaker 1: let you know, there could have been a lot of
Speaker 1: drama there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, but but but but my mother
Speaker 2: wouldn't allow it. Mama and daddy. You know, they just
Speaker 2: taught us. They they taught us. We grew up loving one.
Speaker 1: That's so special though, and it's really feels unique and
Speaker 1: I don't know. You an only child, but I do
Speaker 1: have a half sister who's two years younger than me.
Speaker 1: But we both grew up separately, so we didn't know
Speaker 1: each other till we were a little older. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: but yeah, only child. That sounds like a party to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, because some are you spoiled?
Speaker 2: Of course you are. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But if you ask my mother, she would tell you
Speaker 1: a different answer.
Speaker 2: Well, you know I met your mom. Yeah you did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She's very tall. Yeah, oh man, she is tall. She's tall, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm short. She's five to ten. I'm five to one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I didn't really I might have been spoiled, but
Speaker 1: I never messed with her like I was a good kid,
Speaker 1: because I didn't. I wanted to get mad.
Speaker 2: She was so Yeah, she was tough, and by her
Speaker 2: being so tall, you said, I've been I messed with her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but all you had to do was leap up.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't think that would have flown with her.
Speaker 2: You did the right thing. Listen to my mom knows best.
Speaker 2: I try, Yeah, you try.
Speaker 9: Try.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Oh.
Speaker 1: Man, I was wondering, do you remember the first song
Speaker 1: you sang with Pops when he was teaching you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The very first song my father taught us
Speaker 2: was what the Circle Beyond?
Speaker 4: Ah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that the Circle be broke? And all
Speaker 2: that was his faith. And on our records we recorded
Speaker 2: it about four or five times. But on the records,
Speaker 2: Pops is singing, and I love to hear Pop singing
Speaker 2: because he was so smooth. You know, he was a
Speaker 2: singer like you. He he was laid back. Look. Slid
Speaker 2: Stone came to Pops one day and said, hey, Pap,
Speaker 2: give me the bag. And Pap say what you're talking about?
Speaker 2: He said, come on, mom, give.
Speaker 8: Me the bag.
Speaker 2: I know you got it.
Speaker 1: Because he was so laid back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they thought and purpose my brother had to
Speaker 2: tell Daddy what this lid was talking about. And Pop
Speaker 2: he says, like, you come, I'm gonna choke you boy.
Speaker 2: You know I don't do that.
Speaker 1: Mass too funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, it was so funny. Yeah, because they would
Speaker 2: all talk about how laid back Pop sing, you know,
Speaker 2: and and his voice is just flowed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when he he taught us circle be unbroken and
Speaker 2: and and we have sang it. We sang it with
Speaker 2: Johnny Cash on his television show that it was the state,
Speaker 2: both family and the Carter family. That was years ago.
Speaker 1: That must have been fun.
Speaker 2: It was fun. Yeah. It was for one of one
Speaker 2: of his specials, you.
Speaker 1: Know those TV special Yeah.
Speaker 12: I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but but and I sing it all that's on
Speaker 2: my on my list, on our shoulders and perhaps maybe uh,
Speaker 2: because we look at us as a family, that's our circle.
Speaker 2: And he put us in a circle when he started
Speaker 2: giving us the voices to sing.
Speaker 1: It was I can just picture it. You're sitting down circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna sing some of it for you. You
Speaker 2: sing it to you know, I don't know what k
Speaker 2: I sing in.
Speaker 4: Now you know that I was thinking.
Speaker 2: I was stand too low?
Speaker 1: Is that too low?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: That's good?
Speaker 4: What you say?
Speaker 2: Key that is? That's g okay, that's a shame. I
Speaker 2: don't know what key I sing at.
Speaker 1: I know it's not probably changed over the years.
Speaker 2: I'd probably a Yeah, I sing in some different keys though,
Speaker 2: in our shoulders. But it's all right. I don't need
Speaker 2: to know what ye say.
Speaker 1: I can do it in any key.
Speaker 4: You just tell me.
Speaker 2: Oh, no, you were I think that was good. I
Speaker 2: was signing and that's where you were.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: On a cold and cloud any day when I saw
Speaker 2: the hers come rolling or too caring, Ma moa the away,
Speaker 2: well the circle.
Speaker 9: Be ut.
Speaker 2: By and by lord, by and bye.
Speaker 9: Here's a bed.
Speaker 6: Hod away.
Speaker 9: In the sky.
Speaker 2: Lord the scout wo told the under take lease, drive
Speaker 2: slow cause it's lady.
Speaker 6: That you haul land. Oh why.
Speaker 2: To see her go?
Speaker 4: Will the circus.
Speaker 2: Being broke by and by my lord, bye bye.
Speaker 9: There's a bed.
Speaker 6: Home away.
Speaker 5: In the sky, Lord in the sky.
Speaker 6: I will follow.
Speaker 14: Close behind her, try to hold up and be brave,
Speaker 14: but I could not.
Speaker 6: On my side role.
Speaker 2: Winner laid her in the grain.
Speaker 9: With the circle.
Speaker 2: Beyon broken.
Speaker 9: By and by lord, bye and bye.
Speaker 4: There's a bad.
Speaker 6: Oh my way.
Speaker 5: In the sky, low in the sky, in the sky,
Speaker 5: love him the sky.
Speaker 4: In the sky, low in the.
Speaker 5: Sky.
Speaker 4: Oh you sound just like Cleedie.
Speaker 2: Oh really, oh yeah, I heard Cleedy in your voice. Girl,
Speaker 2: don't stop me to cry. I tell you my sister Kleedie.
Speaker 2: She had the best best soprano voice.
Speaker 1: Really, so you were low and she was high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so you come from And I credit her
Speaker 2: for the Staples singer sound. Really oh yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 2: She would shot and look Aretha would be recording and
Speaker 2: she tell her sister Carolyn. Now, Carolyn, I want to
Speaker 2: sound like cleother. Oh wow, that's amazing. Yeah, and and
Speaker 2: and Carolyn was saying, Carolyn told me about it. She said,
Speaker 2: Mayabe's I told her I can't sound.
Speaker 1: Like cleop because she was mad about it.
Speaker 9: Mad.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but it's a different Pops would give clearly
Speaker 2: like a minor. She would go like, I know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. No, I know, minor in some places.
Speaker 2: And but her voice if you on all of our
Speaker 2: old stuff where Cleedie is singing, her voice stands out.
Speaker 2: And and and her her surprise. And Pops his guitar,
Speaker 2: that's the staple singers.
Speaker 1: I love his guitar so much.
Speaker 2: And he cool taught himself.
Speaker 1: Well that's what's good about it. It's just feeling. It's simple,
Speaker 1: but it's it's got the thing. That's what it's got,
Speaker 1: the sound feeling. Right, When did he how did he
Speaker 1: get that electric sound? Do you know how that came about?
Speaker 11: Pop?
Speaker 2: I remember when he got that tremolo, because.
Speaker 1: That wasn't typical then, no gospel music.
Speaker 2: No, and and and and some preachers, some preachers didn't
Speaker 2: want Pops to play his guitar in the church, and
Speaker 2: Pops had to let him know, Look, you read your Bible,
Speaker 2: string instruments, saying the Bible, you know the heart. The
Speaker 2: Pop would name them all. I guess, uh, what's that
Speaker 2: other one? I can't call the name of it. But
Speaker 2: but but and and and we just wouldn't go to
Speaker 2: the church if they wouldn't let Pops play his guitar.
Speaker 2: But he learned from a blues man, Charlie Patton. Okay,
Speaker 2: see he Pops was on this farm, Patrick Practice Farm
Speaker 2: in Mississippi, and this man was hollering with a lot
Speaker 2: of the blues singers were on this this farm, and
Speaker 2: and and uh, Pops would tell us how this man,
Speaker 2: Charlie Patton would be playing. And look, we didn't know
Speaker 2: for years. While we were singing gospel, our father was
Speaker 2: playing the blues on his caduc Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's the marriage of those two things. And that made
Speaker 1: it so unique, right right right.
Speaker 2: But he he he, He went to the guitar store
Speaker 2: one day and he came back with this trimlod. He said,
Speaker 2: y'all listen, listen to this, and he was drum and
Speaker 2: Elvis presently told me one time, the first time the
Speaker 2: only time I ever saw him, and the first time
Speaker 2: I ever saw we were in Memphis and I was
Speaker 2: standing on the side. It was a starlight review outside
Speaker 2: and I was standing over in the wing, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden he come in with one of his partners.
Speaker 2: They got these leather jackets on, like they've been riding motorcycles,
Speaker 2: and and and we had sang and and uh. He
Speaker 2: told me, he said, I like the way your father
Speaker 2: played that guitar. I said, well, thank you. He said, yeah,
Speaker 2: he plays a nervous guitar. A nervous guitar. He called
Speaker 2: it a nervous guitar.
Speaker 9: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Because of them, that was.
Speaker 2: A good expression. I said, well, I've never heard that before,
Speaker 2: a nervous guitar. Yeah, that's what I'll never forget. And
Speaker 2: that was my meeting with Elvis Presley. I didn't know
Speaker 2: who was one of the guys, David Ruffin who sing
Speaker 2: who later sang with the Temptation. He was singing with
Speaker 2: a gospel. He told me, he said, Maye, you know
Speaker 2: that guy what you was talking to. I said no.
Speaker 2: He said, blue sways shoes.
Speaker 1: I said, that's him, that's him.
Speaker 2: That's the way he would let me know because of
Speaker 2: blue swey shoes. Wow, but yeah, Pops played a nervous guitar.
Speaker 1: Did he laugh at that description?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Did he laugh? He did he laugh? He told me maybe,
Speaker 2: why didn't you call me over to let me me?
Speaker 2: I said, dadd I didn't really know.
Speaker 9: Who he was.
Speaker 2: I was just a David told me who he was. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was beautiful. That's a good expression of him though.
Speaker 2: Of Pops is guitar nurvous guitar because it does.
Speaker 1: That's just the funniest thing I've heard.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but but yeah, Daddy, that's that's when he learned
Speaker 2: how to play his guitar. And he was always playing
Speaker 2: it in the house, you know, after he let us
Speaker 2: know we had a guitar, because we didn't know until
Speaker 2: those guys wouldn't come to rehearsal, and he he probably
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't be any Staples singers if they had they had.
Speaker 1: Come to hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I thank them wow for being not not there,
Speaker 2: not not serious about this. They were the trumpet too,
Speaker 2: and they had a good group too. Possole sing lead
Speaker 2: and uh and Pops had a voice. He would he
Speaker 2: he never went into his false settle on the staple
Speaker 2: singers that, Oh yeah, he would go and he would
Speaker 2: tell me what how they do it up in Heaven today?
Speaker 2: And then he goes pee therebye there like a river.
Speaker 2: They say, oh possible bad. Yeah. And I recorded a
Speaker 2: song with tweety that's what are they doing in heaven.
Speaker 2: I'm not singing it like Pops though. Well that's okay.
Speaker 1: You sing like you.
Speaker 2: I sing like me. I sing like me. I'm so
Speaker 2: grateful to be talking to you, little lady.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: You you are. You are so different from anybody else
Speaker 2: out here. Really, yeah, nobody sounds like you. Nobody. Well
Speaker 2: get me up, break but that's what you show.
Speaker 1: But that's what you want, right to be.
Speaker 2: To be different yet right, But but I'm just honored.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 2: I never thought I would meet you. When I first
Speaker 2: heard you on the radio, don't know, I said, listen
Speaker 2: to who is she?
Speaker 9: Who is she?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still figuring it out.
Speaker 2: Yes, well no, well you you are a giant. You
Speaker 2: a tiny little lady. You are a giant. I tell you,
Speaker 2: I love it. And when I came to your show
Speaker 2: in the Red Rocks, Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: A show together.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, that was fun. I started it off I
Speaker 2: warmed them up for you.
Speaker 1: You killed it, and I was nervous to go on.
Speaker 1: I was, of course ill.
Speaker 2: Those people, all those people that came out for you,
Speaker 2: and and and I noticed you were doing some songs
Speaker 2: that I hadn't heard, and every time you would hit
Speaker 2: one of those songs, the crowd would roar.
Speaker 1: That's so funny, that's what Well, that's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite audiences at Red Rocks, and they're always very loving.
Speaker 1: You play there many times, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we have we have oh with different people.
Speaker 2: Yours was the best.
Speaker 1: We had fun. We have fun. We had recorded a
Speaker 1: song together that Pete Ran wrote. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember it, but I was wondering if you feel
Speaker 1: like trying it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it'll come to me as you go, because I
Speaker 2: I I that's been a while. What happened? Anyway? We
Speaker 2: were supposed to go on tour with that.
Speaker 1: So we were gonna go on tour and then the
Speaker 1: pandemic hit. Yeah, we were gonna do a bunch of
Speaker 1: shows together.
Speaker 2: Yes, I remember. I was so happy.
Speaker 9: Me too.
Speaker 2: Oh man, we will again. We're gonna do it again. Yeah, really,
Speaker 2: we will just do it again. We do it again
Speaker 2: and set it up. You set it up.
Speaker 9: There's a place.
Speaker 14: Five from here.
Speaker 9: Going to make it mine.
Speaker 11: Swear I've belong where I again, where I'm going.
Speaker 2: I'll be gone. I'll be gone.
Speaker 9: Where my heart.
Speaker 2: Get so tired that I candy tail time.
Speaker 9: Don't you cri.
Speaker 2: Where I get.
Speaker 6: Where I'm going, I'll.
Speaker 9: Be go, I'll be go.
Speaker 2: Whish I could tell you that the.
Speaker 15: Sun was gonna shine. I got a feeling that I stiff.
Speaker 1: Won't change my mind.
Speaker 9: Running out of the tide. There's a place.
Speaker 2: On the mountain you can take my bones.
Speaker 9: I go home.
Speaker 6: When I get where I'm going, I'll be gone.
Speaker 2: I'll be gone. I gotta tell you that it's all
Speaker 2: going to be just fly.
Speaker 16: I don't want to waste anymore of your time. You
Speaker 16: didn't waste mind.
Speaker 2: Oh now you don't about a beautiful song.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful songs. He wrote this a long time ago, really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe eight years nine years ago.
Speaker 2: And yeah.
Speaker 1: At one point he mentioned, gosh, it would be cool
Speaker 1: to hear maybe us sing this song. I was like,
Speaker 1: you're right, But you know, I'm a little shy sometimes
Speaker 1: I have a hard time reaching out and asking.
Speaker 2: To do things. But don't be that way with me. Okay,
Speaker 2: now you know it don't come to me anytime but anything.
Speaker 1: But it came full circle, but not for like five
Speaker 1: more years. And then and then I got unshy and
Speaker 1: I asked you to sing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was so that that blew my mind.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, wow, it's a great one.
Speaker 2: That's what I wish. I could play up anything.
Speaker 1: And you never picked anything up.
Speaker 2: I picked up the guitar.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I told Pops I wanted to play that guitar. And
Speaker 2: he tried to teach me, but he didn't. He wasn't
Speaker 2: taught either. So and and then it was a time
Speaker 2: when Pops was still frisky. I was young.
Speaker 1: What does that mean.
Speaker 2: I mean he wasn't ready to patient.
Speaker 1: I think I took it the wrong way.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't man going out on mama. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: know that's that's frisky. But no, he just wasn't patient enough.
Speaker 2: So he gave me about he got me a little
Speaker 2: training guitar, and he gave me about three lessons and
Speaker 2: he was done. He said, maybe I'll tell you what, baby,
Speaker 2: You go down to Lion Healey And I'm eleven years old.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to go downtown to Liney Healey.
Speaker 1: To buy it to get lessons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, to get lessons from them. And I
Speaker 2: told him, I said, Daddy, I want to pick it
Speaker 2: like you and Sister Rose other talk. I don't want to,
Speaker 2: you know, but but if I had learned, if I
Speaker 2: had learned how to strum, I think that would have
Speaker 2: made it easier for him to teach me. You know,
Speaker 2: to pick.
Speaker 1: Picking is harder, harder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know that's but, but but I
Speaker 2: would have been happy strumming.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about when you guys met
Speaker 1: doctor Martin Luther King and you kind of switched from
Speaker 1: singing gospel to these freedom songs protest songs. I read
Speaker 1: something about Pops meeting him and saying he wants to
Speaker 1: sing his words. That is the most beautiful thing I've heard.
Speaker 2: That was something. Yeah, Pops, he it just happened. We
Speaker 2: were in Montgomery, Alabama on Sunday morning. We didn't have
Speaker 2: to work until that night, and Pops called my sisters
Speaker 2: and I to his room and he told us, he said, listen, y'all,
Speaker 2: this man Martin is here, Martin Luther King, and he
Speaker 2: has a church here. He said, I've been listening to
Speaker 2: him on the radio. Doctor King had a radio show
Speaker 2: and Pops has been listening to him, and he said,
Speaker 2: I'd like to go to his eleven o'clock service. Do
Speaker 2: you all want to go? We said, yeah, Daddy, we
Speaker 2: want to go. We all got in the car, went
Speaker 2: down the decks to have a new Baptist church and
Speaker 2: we will ushered in and see it. Someone let Doctor
Speaker 2: King know that we were in the service, and he
Speaker 2: acknowledged us. He said, we've got to have POPA Staples
Speaker 2: and his daughter's here this morning. Hope you enjoyed the service. Well,
Speaker 2: we enjoyed the service, and that as the service is over,
Speaker 2: the worshipers, Doctor King stands at the door to shake
Speaker 2: the worshiper's hands as they filed out, and Pops walked
Speaker 2: past shook his hand. Now, my sisters and I did
Speaker 2: first we shoot, We shoot Doctor King. Oh that was
Speaker 2: a feeling. I shook his hand and Pops we had
Speaker 2: to wait on him. He stood there and talked to
Speaker 2: him for a while. He finally came on. We get
Speaker 2: back to the hotel. He called us to his room
Speaker 2: again and he said, listen, y'all, I like this man's message.
Speaker 2: I really like his message, and I think that if
Speaker 2: he can preach it, we can sing it.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 2: And we started writing freedom songs, March up Freedom Highway?
Speaker 2: Why am I Treated So Bad? We we we we
Speaker 2: we switched over because we didn't feel that it was
Speaker 2: anything wrong. We felt like this was close to gospel.
Speaker 2: You know, we singing the truth, you know, we we
Speaker 2: we what we wanna, we want. We joined the movement
Speaker 2: and and uh we would sing. We would sing before
Speaker 2: Doctor King would speak. We'd go to the meetings and
Speaker 2: Doctor King would tell pop, stay, you're gonna sing my
Speaker 2: song that night, right, probably say oh yeah, Doctor, were
Speaker 2: gonna sing your song? Why am I Treated So Bad? Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was his favorite. And and and and people asked
Speaker 2: me what did he He never talked to us girls.
Speaker 2: He never sit down, and he would just he would
Speaker 2: just say something, how you girls doing this morning? Y'all
Speaker 2: doing all right? Yes, sir Doctor King. Wow. But but
Speaker 2: he wouldn't sit in the hold he would talk. People
Speaker 2: asked me, what did he talk to you about? What
Speaker 2: he didn't talk to me?
Speaker 12: You know?
Speaker 2: But what what I did remember mostly Doctor King was
Speaker 2: his laughter. He had this laughter when he laughed because
Speaker 2: most of the time I would see him, he either
Speaker 2: looked sad or serious, you know, And and when I'd
Speaker 2: hear him laugh, that would make my heart happy, because
Speaker 2: I said, doctor King is happy. And that would be
Speaker 2: most of the time when we'd be going to the
Speaker 2: meeting and the men would be in a huddle down
Speaker 2: in the parking lot, and all of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: hear doctor King laughing. That made me feel so good.
Speaker 2: But no, he never held a conversation with my sisters
Speaker 2: and I. He was just asking that. He said the
Speaker 2: same way every time, are you girls doing this morning?
Speaker 15: Wow?
Speaker 1: How much older was he? You were young?
Speaker 2: Still?
Speaker 8: I was young?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How young were you then?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just I was well in the sixties
Speaker 2: sixty This was like about sixty three, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: So I was born in thirty nine. I'm not good
Speaker 2: at math.
Speaker 1: You were in your you were in your early twenties,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in my early twenties.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And but but that was when we joined the movement
Speaker 2: and we became the soundtrack you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Un Congressman John Lewis would tell, oh, he was my friend.
Speaker 2: Now he was my friend, And I went to his
Speaker 2: office when I did a freedom album with Ray Koto,
Speaker 2: and I asked him if he would write my liner notes,
Speaker 2: and he said, Baby, you know you and your family
Speaker 2: y'all kept us motivated, kept us inspired to keep on
Speaker 2: watching your songs. I said, yes, sir doctor, because after
Speaker 2: surprise he remembered me. Yeah, I said you, Doug. I
Speaker 2: hadn't seen him in the year, and uh, I was
Speaker 2: surprised that gave me a meeting. And of course he
Speaker 2: remembered he didn't remember me, baby, your family, and and
Speaker 2: so he I hate I missed his birthday, invited me
Speaker 2: to his last birthday party and I couldn't go. We
Speaker 2: will working, you know, But but he was my friend
Speaker 2: to the end. Yeah, Congressman John Lewis.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful, Uncle John, Uncle John. When you guys were
Speaker 1: writing songs, was everybody was collectively just sort of pitching in.
Speaker 1: Did Pops always yeah? Was he did he ever work
Speaker 1: on songwriting, like on his own all the time?
Speaker 2: Or yeah?
Speaker 9: He did.
Speaker 2: Pops was always jotting something down, you know, and and
Speaker 2: we would help him. We would put some words in
Speaker 2: on this song. But but that's Daddy's so we don't
Speaker 2: want any credit for Okay, right, we give him to Daddy,
Speaker 2: all of us.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: We dropped dropped birds and he march of Freedom's Highway.
Speaker 2: Made up my mind and I won't turn around, made
Speaker 2: up mine. And there's this one thing I can't understand,
Speaker 2: my friend, that I'm proud of that because that was me.
Speaker 2: Why some folks think freedom was not designed for all men?
Speaker 2: There are so many people living their life perplexed, wondering
Speaker 2: in their minds, what's going to happen next? HASPI we're
Speaker 2: going to march?
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 2: That was the very first one we wrote for the movement.
Speaker 2: And boy, we moved only and and uh we were
Speaker 2: saying that. We sing, oh why am I treating so bad?
Speaker 2: Pops wrote that because of the there were nine children
Speaker 2: in Little Rock, Arkansas, trying to integrate Central High School.
Speaker 2: They would meet people. They kids would walk up there
Speaker 2: every day their books in their arms, proud, and people
Speaker 2: would throw stones at them, spit at them, call them names,
Speaker 2: but they never turned their head. They just kept walking.
Speaker 2: Oh and they were my age, they were, you know.
Speaker 2: So we would all be on the floor, Pops in
Speaker 2: his recliner and were watching the news. It ca got
Speaker 2: so bad, and it lasted so long. The mayor of Arkansas,
Speaker 2: of Little Rock, the governor of Arkansas, and the President
Speaker 2: of the United States said, let those children go to school.
Speaker 6: And WHOA.
Speaker 2: I wanted to we all wanted to see this on
Speaker 2: the news. That particular day, the kids were walking. They
Speaker 2: get right up to the bus and the policeman put
Speaker 2: his billy club across the door, and Pop said right there,
Speaker 2: and he said, how why is he doing that? Why
Speaker 2: are they treating him so bad? Yeah, And he wrote
Speaker 2: that song from that that experience. I tell you, we
Speaker 2: have had a baby's sister I have. I have seen
Speaker 2: a lot. I have seen a lot, and and it
Speaker 2: just makes me more prayerful and more willing to sing
Speaker 2: my songs, you know, because I I don't have to
Speaker 2: sing love. I don't have to be like everybody else.
Speaker 2: I've seen protest songs. I seem to help us move.
Speaker 1: It forward, moving forward, right, moving it forward right, and
Speaker 1: we're still going.
Speaker 2: We're still on.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I owe it to Pops. I owe it to
Speaker 2: my father.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 2: We went to South Africa and these people wanted us
Speaker 2: to sing, want of the black people to be in
Speaker 2: the balcony Johannesburg and Pops told him. He said, no,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna allow my children to sing like he said,
Speaker 2: Doctor King just got that straightened out in the States,
Speaker 2: and we're not gonna sing like that. They said, Now
Speaker 2: you can send us home, do what you got to do.
Speaker 2: We're not singing like So they moved our show to
Speaker 2: the soccer field and so waito, wow, it's a wait,
Speaker 2: it's all it's all black. Uh, you know, this is
Speaker 2: where the people live in little match boxes. And it
Speaker 2: was the very first time that blacks and white sit together,
Speaker 2: no kind of I mean that that soccer field was
Speaker 2: backed yeah, and and black and white were sitting right
Speaker 2: next to each other. And but they had these I've
Speaker 2: never seen a German shepherd dog so big. The bit
Speaker 2: the police was walking around with them, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess for just in case something went wrong. But it
Speaker 2: was peaceful. But see, during that time, they wouldn't let
Speaker 2: us go up downtown by ourselves.
Speaker 1: That must have been hard to go at all.
Speaker 2: It was, Yeah, they wouldn't allow it. The kids will
Speaker 2: tell me, maybe we will call you, we will come
Speaker 2: see you. If they call my my my calls would
Speaker 2: go to the white girls room. She would be there
Speaker 2: and she would. She would take us, and she wouldn't
Speaker 2: let the kids talk to me. They wouldn't let them
Speaker 2: in the hotel. That it was very educational, very beautiful
Speaker 2: experience and intense, intense, intense.
Speaker 1: Yes, you've been on tour though since the pandemic a lot.
Speaker 1: You've got the tour in these little pockets, and I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to hear that I haven't had all yet.
Speaker 1: What I just haven't not since the the COVID started.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know, I'm excited that you're out there
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm going everywhere you're going and with books
Speaker 2: now going through November.
Speaker 1: You're doing a tour with Bonnie Ray the Center.
Speaker 2: I always do it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: That'll be my third tour.
Speaker 1: You've known her a long time, right, Oh, yes, she's great.
Speaker 1: You know that's going to be a show, I tell you.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's always good show.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I used to be tell us of Bonnie. My
Speaker 2: father loved hers so much. You're jealousy, and I told us,
Speaker 2: I said, look, I didn't know if I should get
Speaker 2: some red hair, or if I should learn how to
Speaker 2: play to get tired, or if I should get real
Speaker 2: tiny because Pops loved, and she loved. She came to see.
Speaker 2: She came to the house and Seapop when he was sick. Wow,
Speaker 2: and Bonnie took me so bad. Pops went upstairs. He
Speaker 2: wasn't feeling good, and he went upstairs to lie down.
Speaker 2: She followed him. She sit on the bed and she said,
Speaker 2: now nobody can tell me I haven't been in a
Speaker 2: pop stable bed.
Speaker 1: That's Bonnie, Yeah, that's Bonnie.
Speaker 2: It was funny, Yeah, it's funny, but it was so good.
Speaker 2: Made possibeel so much better. He gave her a guitar.
Speaker 2: He had to get there and all of us were there.
Speaker 2: We sang, that's beautiful.
Speaker 8: It was it was.
Speaker 1: Isn't it something? How music keeps you going? Yes, it
Speaker 1: really keeps. Yes, it keeps you young, It keeps you young,
Speaker 1: keeps and it's healing and it brings joy.
Speaker 2: And right and we can't do without music.
Speaker 1: I know, no way, I get that feeling from you.
Speaker 12: Yeah you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm passing on. But well, I tell you, yours
Speaker 2: brought me so much. I wish Pops could hear you.
Speaker 1: Oh, I wish I could play watch him play guitar
Speaker 1: a person.
Speaker 2: You know what he would do. He would tell me
Speaker 2: that's the way. Oh no, that's you know who else.
Speaker 1: You know who else gave me that feeling always was
Speaker 1: Levon Helm.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gave me that feeling where he just it
Speaker 1: was just all music and it kept him going and
Speaker 1: just you know, oh man, And I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I saw you on TV was watching The Weight
Speaker 1: on the Last Walls and I thought, my goodness, she
Speaker 1: is beautiful and she's.
Speaker 6: Smoking all of that.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I was just like, and you looked six feet tall,
Speaker 1: and you look so tall, look so tall?
Speaker 2: You do lone black gown?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: I mean I'd heard you singing my whole life, but
Speaker 1: it was the first time I zero it in visually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was nice.
Speaker 1: I know you had our long friendship with Levon.
Speaker 2: Oh lord, yeah, Levon. I have an album coming out
Speaker 2: with Levonne. Wow and and and uh we we did
Speaker 2: it at his barn and he was right next to
Speaker 2: me and with them drums. But but I tell you
Speaker 2: about that when we when we were doing Las Watch,
Speaker 2: Levonne was smoking and Pops went back to we had
Speaker 2: a break Levon, Pops go back. They were tight buddies.
Speaker 2: Levon and Pop said, Levon, man, you smoking two cigarettes?
Speaker 2: He had a cigarette and Levonne said, all you gotta
Speaker 2: try this one.
Speaker 1: I don't think they were the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were not the same. Papa said, Levon, man,
Speaker 2: I don't think that mess, but that that Daddy laughed
Speaker 2: about that forever. He laughed about that. But yeah, Levonne,
Speaker 2: that was the best time because we stayed there about
Speaker 2: a week. We you know, we would go back to
Speaker 2: the bar every day from the hotel.
Speaker 1: And making the record. Yeah, so when did you make it?
Speaker 1: About ten years ago?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, yes, because I was going to say, look,
Speaker 2: are you all going to release this record? Am I
Speaker 2: going to be? Didn't gone or what? But yeah, they
Speaker 2: it's coming I think in May.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time.
Speaker 1: And I love it, you know that he's gone, especially,
Speaker 1: it'll be so special.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Amy, Amy helped, you know. I told her
Speaker 2: to tell her about it. I said, Amy, didn't need
Speaker 2: to release the record. Yeah, you know, we'd end up
Speaker 2: in age and we might leave here me. So she said,
Speaker 2: they got it going good. But yeah, that was that
Speaker 2: was a proud Time.
Speaker 1: Did you do what the songs? Did you do with
Speaker 1: leve On? Did you do all old songs?
Speaker 2: Did you do that.
Speaker 1: Nina Simone version? That's a Billy Taylor song, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I wish I knew how it would feel to be free?
Speaker 2: That's a Billy Taylor song.
Speaker 1: That's what my my my phone said when I googled it,
Speaker 1: because I mean the Nina version is. But I think
Speaker 1: it's that Billy Taylor wrote it, really, and I it's
Speaker 1: so funny. I saw him play. Yeah, and when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, and I didn't realize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's a great song. Did you record that
Speaker 1: with Levan?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I wish I knew. And and we recorded Trouble
Speaker 2: in Mine? Oh, I love that one in mine? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and uh oh I love some Nina Nina.
Speaker 9: Did you know her?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yes, And she was someone I met whose
Speaker 2: voice was heavier than mine. Yes, and boy she was.
Speaker 2: I saw her first saw her in the village gate
Speaker 2: and she had on all white. She was playing that
Speaker 2: piano and and and all of the people.
Speaker 9: Damn.
Speaker 2: She stopped and stood up. Do you people have cotton
Speaker 2: in your ears? Whoa? She told them off because they
Speaker 2: were talking you have cotton in your ears, And I said,
Speaker 2: whoa go on, sister. But yeah, we got to know.
Speaker 2: We got to be very good friends.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: We were in the Bahamas though. Last time I saw
Speaker 2: her we were in the Bahamas, and then she moved
Speaker 2: to New Guinea where Miriam mckibo was and uh, she
Speaker 2: passed away over there. But baby's sister, we were in
Speaker 2: New Guinea, don't you know. These little guys they were
Speaker 2: in the auditorium where we were singing. They wanted to
Speaker 2: have a coup against the president of somebody, oh God.
Speaker 2: And we got to the show and we're standing at
Speaker 2: the door, Pops and my sister and I and this
Speaker 2: man is saying that's all we could understand was you know,
Speaker 2: and and he was telling them. So they still came
Speaker 2: in with the guns and they stood on the side
Speaker 2: of the stage in the wings where we were, and
Speaker 2: as I was singing, I would look over there a
Speaker 2: little bit and it would be just dancing.
Speaker 1: That is crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, y'all, don't scared us to death.
Speaker 1: You have gone to some wild times places you've you've
Speaker 1: had it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, So we made it through that one that.
Speaker 1: I do have one more question, if you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: talking about it. Yeah, I was curious about songwriting and
Speaker 1: the story you told me yesterday. Yeah, that broke my heart.
Speaker 2: You know, it's been so long ago that I'm I'm
Speaker 2: surprised I even brought it up. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know somebody said something about songwriting and but and it
Speaker 2: did this man. You know, I had written my three
Speaker 2: songs and and he was at Stax Records. He wanted
Speaker 2: all of my publishing. And I'm telling him on the phone,
Speaker 2: telling him, no, I'm singing twelve songs on the album.
Speaker 2: You know, you take all that pubblish but mine. My
Speaker 2: father's always taught me I should get one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of my writers and publishing. And that's and he talked
Speaker 2: to me like, all right, miss Stables, all right, I understand, yes,
Speaker 2: all right, we'll do as you'd like. And I'm thinking
Speaker 2: I've won. Yeah, the record come out and and it's
Speaker 2: on a different label or something, and uh, it's me singing.
Speaker 2: And then they have songwriter unknown and a song you wrote. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the songs that I wrote. And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it was so long ago, you know, no need of
Speaker 2: me trying to fix this now. But that broke my heart.
Speaker 1: And you didn't write after that.
Speaker 2: I didn't write anymore songs.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the sad part. But but you still
Speaker 1: make all songs your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: just you know, that stuff happened so much. Yeah back then.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a shame the way people are treated.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not just me, you know. I'm sure
Speaker 2: the record business has.
Speaker 1: Been tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, but it was much trickier
Speaker 1: back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, way back. That was and and and and
Speaker 2: I was doing stuff. You know, I was afraid because
Speaker 2: I was these were these were secular songs, and and
Speaker 2: and you do something secular against the gospel stuff. I
Speaker 2: was lucky. I don't know how it happened. I recorded
Speaker 2: house is not a Home. I recorded a sect and
Speaker 2: and the church people didn't say nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you you got in trouble for that.
Speaker 2: I could have got, but they didn't. You know what
Speaker 2: they messed with I'll take you there. They wanted to
Speaker 2: put us out of church. Wow, they say, the stables
Speaker 2: singers and singing the devil's music. Wow, the devil's music.
Speaker 2: I said, you all. You gotta listen to our lyrics.
Speaker 2: They heard this beat and then the people would jump
Speaker 2: up and dance. And I'll take you there, you know,
Speaker 2: because but up until I'll take you there, we just
Speaker 2: sang with my father's guitar. We didn't have no rhythm section.
Speaker 2: We just sing with dad his guitar. And and but
Speaker 2: when this rhythm section came on, I'll take you there.
Speaker 2: That look we're telling you, I know a place. Ain't
Speaker 2: nobody crying. I mean, ain't nobody world.
Speaker 1: That's a gospel songs.
Speaker 2: I've taken you to Hell? Yeah, I mean and and
Speaker 2: lo and behold. After all the interviews we did talking
Speaker 2: to these people, they invited us back to church. We
Speaker 2: go back to church. The first song requested in the
Speaker 2: pool bit I'll take you there. You know what I said.
Speaker 2: You know you just don't know what to do to
Speaker 2: please people. It's true.
Speaker 1: That's why you gotta just speak your truth, sing your
Speaker 1: truth right, and spread some love. Spread love, put out love, yes,
Speaker 1: put it out there, and that's what you do.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna keep on doing it.
Speaker 1: You are my favorite fall of love.
Speaker 2: You, my little sweetheart. I love you so much.
Speaker 1: Do you have one more song in you? Or can
Speaker 1: I play? Can I play you a song? And you
Speaker 1: chime in if you want?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll end it.
Speaker 1: We can.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: The the album Pops made the album, uh that song friendship,
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and then Jeff and the crew they kind
Speaker 1: of fixed it up right and and recorded all recorded
Speaker 1: like you weren't happy with it, and it never got
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: And Tweety did all that for for Pop's album. That
Speaker 2: was that's his last work, and I wanted it. I
Speaker 2: wanted to put it out there, but I wanted to
Speaker 2: put it out properly and write.
Speaker 1: And so he re recorded all the stuff that was
Speaker 1: you weren't happy with right, Yes, he took the tracks
Speaker 1: of Pops and you guys singing, and I.
Speaker 2: Was so pleased. I come up in here to listen
Speaker 2: and tears just flowed. Yeah. You know, my sister Vaughn
Speaker 2: and I we we came to check it out. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Jeff Tweety.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful recording and it's a great song. That's
Speaker 1: a pop song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's a good song.
Speaker 1: It's a really good song. Say watch wrong my longtime friend, Something's.
Speaker 9: Bothering you.
Speaker 4: Tell me what the problem is.
Speaker 2: I see what I can do.
Speaker 4: There's a times we disagree.
Speaker 9: We agree more than we don't.
Speaker 1: We won't always see I do, but we will more
Speaker 1: than we want this.
Speaker 17: We got friendship, the kind of last life time.
Speaker 2: Through all the timeships. You know you're a friend of mind.
Speaker 17: We got friendship, the kind of last life time.
Speaker 4: Through all thus hardships.
Speaker 2: You know you're a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: You want to sing one, Oh burn up.
Speaker 12: Talk to me, oh parle of mine. If you feel
Speaker 12: you can't go home, don't you swept.
Speaker 9: It ain't over yet.
Speaker 2: This spawn with ship y strong.
Speaker 6: I've been a well you.
Speaker 1: Are right now.
Speaker 2: You saw me through it all. I lean on you
Speaker 2: now you can lean on me. I bet I want
Speaker 2: lady your fall because we got friendship kind of lasts
Speaker 2: a life time through all the hardship. You know you're
Speaker 2: a friend of mine.
Speaker 17: Because we got fast ship, the kind of lasts life time.
Speaker 2: Through all those hardships. You know you're a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: If you're on the street, I take your hat.
Speaker 2: Hungry, I'll give you you food.
Speaker 1: If it's money you.
Speaker 2: Need, I got some saved. If you're sick, I'll.
Speaker 3: Visit you.
Speaker 1: I've been with you all right.
Speaker 9: Now you saw me through it all.
Speaker 2: I'll lean on you now you can lean on me.
Speaker 2: I won't let you fall because we.
Speaker 4: Got friend ship, the kind of last life time.
Speaker 7: Through all those hardships, you know you a friend of mine.
Speaker 17: We got friendship, the kind of last life time.
Speaker 4: Through all those hors.
Speaker 2: Ships, poor you know you're a friend of mine.
Speaker 5: Through all the hard ships.
Speaker 2: You know you're a friend of mine, through all the
Speaker 2: hard shops, you know you're a friend o mine. I
Speaker 2: had to fight. That came from Crime Girl. I love
Speaker 2: that song and I love you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for thanks for talking with me.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy. I'm so happy you invited me. I've
Speaker 2: never done one of these. What do you call it
Speaker 2: a podcast?
Speaker 1: Podcast? Well, I'm honored that you joined me. Thank you, babes.
Speaker 1: You are loved by all who know you ask for
Speaker 1: everything always, I hope, so thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Just playing alone, Thanks for listening to the show that
Speaker 1: was made for Staple.
Speaker 3: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a fun way.
Speaker 3: I just want her to call me and tell me
Speaker 3: everything's going to be okay. I believe her. We should
Speaker 3: just call her.
Speaker 1: Hey, can you tell me everything's gonna be okay. I'm
Speaker 1: sure she probably needs to hear it too. Sometimes it's true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, she is not alone. In fact, let's let's
Speaker 1: wrap this up so we can go call her. How
Speaker 1: much thanks for listening to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Our show was recorded by Mark Greenberg at The Loft
Speaker 1: in Chicago, mixed by Jamie Landry and additional engineering by
Speaker 1: Greg Toebler, produced by Me and Sarah Oda Sarah Oda,
Speaker 1: and photography by Shervin Linnez. Artwork by Eliza Fry. Additional
Speaker 1: recording by Matt Marinelli, Audio post production and mastering by
Speaker 1: Greg Tobler. Executive producers Aaron wan Kaufman and Jordan Runtog,
Speaker 1: Marketing lead Alison Kantre Greeber.
Speaker 2: See you Later,