Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today, we're sharing an episode from a great artist
Speaker 1: who also happens to have one of our favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's called Nora Jones is Playing Along. Nora is, of course,
Speaker 1: a multi Grammy winning artist who loves to collaborate with
Speaker 1: other musicians, so she started a podcast where she can
Speaker 1: do just that. Each episode features a different musical guest,
Speaker 1: and you, as a listener, get to be a fly
Speaker 1: on the wall in the studio as musicians come together
Speaker 1: fro impromptu music making and candid conversations. With guests like
Speaker 1: Jeff Tweety, Robert Glasper, and Lucas Nelson. You'll hear everything
Speaker 1: from their hits to classic covers to songs written on
Speaker 1: the spot. The episode we're sharing today is with the
Speaker 1: legendary Mavis Staples. You'll be treated to stories from her
Speaker 1: time as a member of the iconic Staples Singers, spreading
Speaker 1: powerful messages of peace through gospel and soul music. Mavis
Speaker 1: also talks about her current projects a solo artist and beyond.
Speaker 1: We'll also hear Mavis and Nora play gospel classic as
Speaker 1: well as pay homage to Mavis's father, Pop Staples, along
Speaker 1: with a few other surprises. So listen and then follow
Speaker 1: and subscribe to. Nora Jones is playing along wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts to hear more great episodes with fantastic
Speaker 1: guest artists. Without further ado, please enjoy. Nora Jones is
Speaker 1: playing along with Mayvis Staples.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with
Speaker 2: Mayvis Staples and just playing.
Speaker 3: Alone, just playing alone.
Speaker 2: Hi, welcome to the show. I'm Nora, and with me
Speaker 2: as always is Sarah Oda.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 5: Hello.
Speaker 2: Today's show is so fun to record and pretty emotional.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you felt about it, Oda, but
Speaker 2: for me, it was it was very very special.
Speaker 5: I feel like Mayvi's Staples is a force, yeah, but
Speaker 5: like a very sweet, tender, loving, huggable force.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, She's just an amazing human. She is full
Speaker 2: of love and we love her.
Speaker 5: You cannot be in a bad mood when she's in
Speaker 5: the room.
Speaker 2: No, And we talk about that a little in this episode,
Speaker 2: about her her energy and where it comes from. Mayva Staples,
Speaker 2: of course, was part of the Staples Singers.
Speaker 5: Mavis and her family were iconic throughout the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 5: Her father was friends with doctor Martin Luther King Junior,
Speaker 5: and they performed at rallies and protests before his speeches.
Speaker 5: They inspired people when people needed it the most.
Speaker 2: We enjoyed talking to Mavis about her family and the
Speaker 2: dynamic of the Staples singers, Pops, and of course now
Speaker 2: she's also a solo artist in her own right. She's
Speaker 2: influenced so many people.
Speaker 5: Everybody loves her and aside from the incredible music that
Speaker 5: she makes, all the stories that come along with the
Speaker 5: history she's had and the people she's encountered along the way.
Speaker 5: I mean, I could just listen to her talk all
Speaker 5: day long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talk about all this and we sing several
Speaker 2: songs together, some that I didn't even know we were
Speaker 2: going to sing in this episode, So that was really fun.
Speaker 2: She just goes with it at all times, and that's
Speaker 2: what's so fun about being around Mavis.
Speaker 4: I met her for the first.
Speaker 2: Time in twenty ten when we were both honoring Paul
Speaker 2: McCartney at the Kennedy Center Honors and she saw me.
Speaker 4: We talk about this too, but she saw me and
Speaker 4: she took my hand and she said, oh, hey, should
Speaker 4: you be my daughter?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she just hugged me and it was just, you know,
Speaker 2: pure love.
Speaker 4: Ever since then.
Speaker 2: So I was so honored that Mavis could join me
Speaker 2: and we could play songs together and reconnect. It's been
Speaker 2: a long time since I'd seen her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we recorded this episode at Jeff Tweety's studio
Speaker 5: in Chicago called the Loft, and start off by talking
Speaker 5: about a song that he wrote for her called You
Speaker 5: Are Not Alone.
Speaker 4: I hope you enjoy. So that's the MAVs corner. I
Speaker 4: didn't know that when I was here. You don't have
Speaker 4: a corner.
Speaker 2: I don't I've been all over the nooks, even in
Speaker 2: the draw.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well I tell you I got my first Grammy from here.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, You're Not Alone. I was from the staple thing,
Speaker 7: just Mavis. Uh huh, Yeah, that was my first.
Speaker 2: Grand That's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.
Speaker 6: It is beautiful and you and I got down on
Speaker 6: it too in the Apollo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was hoping we could start with it actually,
Speaker 2: just to warm us up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, no problem. Yeah, I know the words to that.
Speaker 2: Did whenever he brought it to you, were you moved
Speaker 2: by the lyrics?
Speaker 4: I was just out and see what he did.
Speaker 7: He was writing it right here in the studio and
Speaker 7: I was standing over him and he got through that
Speaker 7: first verse and I chill bumps came up, you know,
Speaker 7: and all of a sudden he stopped. I'm waiting for
Speaker 7: him to go into the second verse, and he stopped,
Speaker 7: and I said, what you doing. He says, I need
Speaker 7: more time, more time, he said. I said, oh, tweety,
Speaker 7: and he said.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna have it for you tomorrow. I gotta take
Speaker 6: it home. I'm gonna have for you tomorrow.
Speaker 4: I said, okay, tweet.
Speaker 6: But he gave me the part of the melody, and
Speaker 6: I laid with that the night that I before tonight,
Speaker 6: I was at home, and when I came in the
Speaker 6: next day, he laid it on men.
Speaker 4: I tell you it just it just hit me. And because.
Speaker 6: At that time, you know, I was feeling alone. Really yeah,
Speaker 6: I had lost my sister, my oldest sister.
Speaker 7: And and uh my other sister was sick, you know.
Speaker 7: So the song hit me. You know, it was for me.
Speaker 7: It was for me.
Speaker 4: It feels made for you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was made for me. And uh, I love it.
Speaker 7: We sing it every show. We don't go off the
Speaker 7: stage without singing You're not alone.
Speaker 2: I've heard you sing this many, many times. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: love it. I was around the house singing it.
Speaker 6: If you feel alone, No, I don't alone. I just
Speaker 6: love the song I'm doing.
Speaker 7: Okay, now see I got you, babe.
Speaker 4: I love you. I love you two little girl. Well
Speaker 4: let's try it. Okay, you want to try it?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love.
Speaker 2: The thing I love about this song is how there's
Speaker 2: harmony the whole way through. Yes, and it has that
Speaker 2: not alone feeling it does.
Speaker 7: It's so beautiful and its just and and and it
Speaker 7: makes you.
Speaker 6: Feel it's so much better. It makes you feel like
Speaker 6: you're you're just telling the truth.
Speaker 4: You're not alone. I know you're not alone. And I
Speaker 4: tell you people people love it. People as soon as
Speaker 4: we hit it, they go, cobbe, it's the best hit it.
Speaker 9: You're not long, I'm with you, loaned to.
Speaker 6: H what's that song? Candy song?
Speaker 10: Got A broken Heart, a broken home, I slayed out
Speaker 10: and afraid.
Speaker 4: Open up. This is a rag.
Speaker 11: I want to get it through you.
Speaker 12: You, Oh not loan, You're not alone?
Speaker 6: Here the read night, I stand in your place. Either
Speaker 6: read whatever, reface taste the same.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 10: A broken dream, a broken.
Speaker 8: Heart, I slay it.
Speaker 4: And afraid open up.
Speaker 2: This is raided.
Speaker 6: Will to get it through you.
Speaker 4: You're not longe.
Speaker 6: An open hand, an open heart. There's no need to
Speaker 6: be afraid, overnap this raid.
Speaker 10: I wonna get it back to you.
Speaker 4: You're not alone.
Speaker 6: No no, I won't to get it through to you.
Speaker 4: You're not alone. No no, I'm gonna get it through
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 6: Not alone.
Speaker 4: Help me, Oh my god, shelp me.
Speaker 6: That was pretty Thank you. Oh that's a beautiful you are.
Speaker 6: So you played all that.
Speaker 7: Oh there was notes and that and that that dream and.
Speaker 4: That beautiful, so beautiful tweety A broken dream, a broken heart.
Speaker 6: It hurts, it hurts over.
Speaker 4: I just love it so much. And I loved Jeff.
Speaker 6: I was so glad you sang that with me and
Speaker 6: the Apollo.
Speaker 4: That was really fun.
Speaker 6: And at first they couldn't find the piano.
Speaker 4: Oh well I put it on a world it' sir right. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I prayed. I said, he want to get her
Speaker 7: here and here they going.
Speaker 4: You prayed for a piano for me. Yeah, I'm honored.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, that was really fun. That was your birthday.
Speaker 4: It was my idea. That's crazy. Check that out.
Speaker 6: Wow, you helped me celebrate my birthday that was.
Speaker 2: The second time, because I was with you in Newport
Speaker 2: on one of your birthdays at the Focus.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, that must have been. That must have been
Speaker 7: my seven year.
Speaker 4: Probably, I think. I don't know. I can't remember. I
Speaker 4: stopped trying to remember.
Speaker 2: I don't remember how old I am. Sometimes I get it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but but but who cares? I don't. I don't
Speaker 4: feel like any different.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're buds and where this could be
Speaker 2: the same age or you know what I mean, like
Speaker 2: it doesn't my god.
Speaker 4: Doesn't feel it doesn't feel very different. It doesn't feel
Speaker 4: very different.
Speaker 2: Though you've gotten more experienced than me.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, yes, and I you know, I'm
Speaker 7: I'm I'm the old girl. I'm just I'm the seniors.
Speaker 7: I'm the golden girl. But I'm hanging with young blood.
Speaker 2: You are, and people love you, young people love you.
Speaker 4: That makes me feel you know, you walk into the
Speaker 4: room and you make me feel young. I don't know.
Speaker 4: You just bring the sunshine you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it really makes me feel good that the young adults.
Speaker 7: I have one friend who works at Columbia College over here,
Speaker 7: and she teaches, you know, she teaches music and she
Speaker 7: tells her students stories and she lets me know. She says, Maybes,
Speaker 7: these kids love you. These kids, Uh no, you don't know,
Speaker 7: Hermit Terry Hermitt. No, yeah, but she she tells me
Speaker 7: all the time, and it makes me.
Speaker 4: Feel so good. They do though, they love you so much.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well see they see that I'm a kid too,
Speaker 4: you are, I admit, I agree. Yeah, I've never grown up.
Speaker 6: In my heart, I'm still a little kid, you know.
Speaker 6: And I just I just I love to play, I
Speaker 6: love to sing.
Speaker 4: I just love people. So I love babies.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, man, are you take everybody's bab Are you good
Speaker 4: with them? I'm good with yeah. Oh.
Speaker 7: We get on a plane and and I always take
Speaker 7: this little bottle of bubbles with me just in case
Speaker 7: some baby is going to cry on that plane.
Speaker 4: And I wait on it.
Speaker 7: When I hear baby cry, I get my bubbles out,
Speaker 7: find the baby, and I started blowing bubbles. And the
Speaker 7: baby looks at the bubbles. Mama be so happy that
Speaker 7: I came along. Yeah, what I'm bubbles.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's your nickname, right, that's my nickname? Yeah? Who
Speaker 4: gave you that nickname? Really? Since you were a little girl,
Speaker 4: since you were little?
Speaker 6: No, not it wasn't until I was about I wasn't
Speaker 6: thirty yet.
Speaker 7: I was in my twenties, okay, and uh, I asked,
Speaker 7: I said, Mama, why you call me bubbles?
Speaker 6: She said, maybe it's because you're so bubbly. You're just
Speaker 6: always so happy.
Speaker 4: You just you know, you just came out that way.
Speaker 4: I came that way.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask that where that comes from.
Speaker 2: But I think people who have that just are like that.
Speaker 6: I'm just happy, go lucky all the time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a great way to be. It really is.
Speaker 7: And I'm grateful because but every now and then I'll
Speaker 7: let something get on my nerve. But it's got to
Speaker 7: be strong, yeah, you know, because most of the time
Speaker 7: I overlook it whatever. You know, if it was supposed
Speaker 7: to get on my nerve, I can overlook it and
Speaker 7: stay happy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I'll take some of that, please, Can I have some
Speaker 4: of that? It's free of charge.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty happy in general, but I'm not a bubbly person,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like I don't bring the
Speaker 2: sunshine into every room, but I don't get too sad.
Speaker 4: Usually I'm pretty even.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have I don't realize it, but you do
Speaker 7: bring the sunshine.
Speaker 2: Well that's kind of you. But I mean, when I'm
Speaker 2: talking about you bring in the sunshine, you're on a hole.
Speaker 6: Well come in, noisey, noisy, cruel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, but yeah.
Speaker 6: And and and Prince used to tell me, he said, Davis,
Speaker 6: you're talking too loud.
Speaker 4: Really, what a thing to say that would be.
Speaker 7: I was grateful though, because also told me then really,
Speaker 7: but I've always told you know, there were five of
Speaker 7: us children in the house. Yeah, and if you want
Speaker 7: to be heard, you gotta let your voice be heard.
Speaker 6: I was just I come from a noisy crew, just like.
Speaker 4: I say, all the hig family. That's what it's about.
Speaker 7: Right, But right, and I'm I'm just grateful.
Speaker 6: I know I should talk softer and save.
Speaker 2: I think at this point you're good. Did they say
Speaker 2: that out of concern for your singing voice? Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I get that. But if it hadn't been
Speaker 2: a problem yet, right then.
Speaker 6: Right, I'm not talking about all my life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a problem.
Speaker 7: But I guess they were just used to being around
Speaker 7: people who talked under their voice.
Speaker 4: Yes, and now I was surprised his voice so.
Speaker 2: Mayavis, Prince he had a low speaking voice. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: met him once, but he did he and he was
Speaker 2: very soft spoken.
Speaker 4: He was, he was, and he observed a lot, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 7: I took him to I said, Prince, it's just gonna
Speaker 7: have to make you my son.
Speaker 4: Al right, Bavis, I'll be your son.
Speaker 7: And I loved him talk because his voice was just rare. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, but when he sing, you know, it was
Speaker 7: a heavy voice when he sing to but to talk.
Speaker 7: I saw him do an interview with Arsenio Hall one time,
Speaker 7: and man, his voice.
Speaker 4: Or Senior was shocked. He was shocked too.
Speaker 7: But some people, uh talk in a different voice then
Speaker 7: they sing.
Speaker 2: My kids told me that when they hear my voice singing,
Speaker 2: they think I sound different when I'm just home.
Speaker 4: You know, you're telling them what to do, That's what
Speaker 4: they tell me.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, they tell you said, yes, your boy, your
Speaker 7: singing voice is very mellow and sweet and soft and
Speaker 7: and and you you could make a person hurt themselves.
Speaker 7: You just you just calm you down. You said, when
Speaker 7: I first heard what's.
Speaker 4: The name, Oh don't know why, don't know why?
Speaker 6: Yeah, when I first don't know, don't know why.
Speaker 7: I was around the house doing something and that came
Speaker 7: on the radio and I stopped whatever I was doing.
Speaker 7: I had to stop and listen. And then the next time,
Speaker 7: I said, it's a beautiful song. Next time I heard it,
Speaker 7: I saw you. You were on television.
Speaker 6: And I was walking around. I was again the TV
Speaker 6: was on and you came on and I said, it's
Speaker 6: a song.
Speaker 4: I saw you. I said, oh my.
Speaker 6: Goodness, start singing it.
Speaker 7: And it's just been one of my favorites all time.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah, my friend Jesse Harris wrote that song. Really,
Speaker 4: he was in my band and he wrote the song.
Speaker 4: I Love You wrote it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people think I wrote it, but hey, I wrote
Speaker 2: a few songs on that album, but I didn't really
Speaker 2: get deep into songwriting until a little bit later.
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well, you sing it like you wrote it. I think
Speaker 4: you have to, don't you.
Speaker 2: You have to feel like you own the song to
Speaker 2: really deliver it, even if you didn't come up with it, right.
Speaker 2: And that's what you do with the Jeff Twitty songs. Yes,
Speaker 2: and that's what you do with every song. I mean,
Speaker 2: really do what you have to do, you really do.
Speaker 7: You've got to from your heart. Yeah, it's got to
Speaker 7: come from your heart. If you you want to deliver
Speaker 7: it and you want people to get it and feel
Speaker 7: it and react from it the way you have, that's
Speaker 7: what's the way you gotta do.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 4: Pop's always told me.
Speaker 7: We were in in New York one time about I
Speaker 7: was about thirteen years old, and these kids sang before us,
Speaker 7: and they were just jumping all across the stage and
Speaker 7: singing loud. So when it was time for us to sing,
Speaker 7: I did that. Yeah, and my father snatched me off
Speaker 7: the stage. He said, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 11: Maybe?
Speaker 7: Wow, he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm
Speaker 7: just singing. Dad, He said, maybe, let me tell you something.
Speaker 7: You don't you your music don't need a gimmick. You
Speaker 7: don't need a gimmick.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: You sing from your heart. Sing what comes from the
Speaker 7: heart reaches the heart. And that's the way. I've never
Speaker 7: forgotten it, never, you know. And he said, you don't
Speaker 7: be you don't have to clown. You don't need to
Speaker 7: give me. I was drying the kids they were jumping
Speaker 7: across the stage. Yeah, singing loud, and uh, he says,
Speaker 7: the uh. You singing sacred music. You don't need any gimmick.
Speaker 7: Sing from your heart. If you sing from your heart,
Speaker 7: you'll reek the people.
Speaker 4: I agree with that. I also I think his voice
Speaker 4: also had that mellow, easy going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't trying to sing over anybody, but you
Speaker 2: had to lean in.
Speaker 4: To hear it. And then it hit you right right.
Speaker 6: And you're the same way. You know, you laid back.
Speaker 4: I don't know where, I don't know why, but you are.
Speaker 6: I'm just so proud to know you, a little lady.
Speaker 4: I'm proud to know you.
Speaker 2: I met you at the Kennedy Center for the first time,
Speaker 2: and you took my hands.
Speaker 4: And you saw I was nervous. I remember you knew
Speaker 4: I was nervous.
Speaker 6: I knew, yeah, you.
Speaker 4: Could tell I could. So you took me and you
Speaker 4: held me. I said, I gotta protect this little girl.
Speaker 4: I was like, what am I doing here? Yeah?
Speaker 7: I came on down there and got you and just
Speaker 7: stand right by me and we held hands all through
Speaker 7: that finale.
Speaker 4: Yes, that was so fun. It was so special meeting
Speaker 4: you there.
Speaker 6: Oh man, that was a good time. Yeah, that was
Speaker 6: a good time. Anytime I see your name, I flare up.
Speaker 6: You know, that could go either way.
Speaker 4: And I was seeing you, I was seeing you so.
Speaker 7: Much like you told me, Yes, that was Christmas. But
Speaker 7: Christmas needed you, I was, it really needed you.
Speaker 2: You know what I needed Christmas last year, and that's
Speaker 2: why I made a Christmas album because I needed I
Speaker 2: needed a little joyful, something right feel right good.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm glad you made that album because they they
Speaker 7: were a featuring.
Speaker 6: You all week, all day again.
Speaker 4: Christmas exhaustion. Oh it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: You know recorded the song from your Christmas The Staples
Speaker 2: Singers Christmas album we did the twenty fifth day of December.
Speaker 6: Did you.
Speaker 4: I'll send it to you.
Speaker 2: It wasn't it wasn't on the album, but it was
Speaker 2: a bonus track. Oh, because I didn't feel like we
Speaker 2: made it. It was so your version is so good
Speaker 2: it was hard to beat it.
Speaker 4: But it's great. It's still a.
Speaker 2: Great version, and it's a great I loved your I
Speaker 2: listened to your Christmas album a.
Speaker 4: Lot really recording. Yeah really, Oh and that was so
Speaker 4: many years ago. Yeah, wow, but it's beautiful. It's a
Speaker 4: beautiful album.
Speaker 7: And and and Pops, he wrote the song there was
Speaker 7: a star he did. Yeah, he wrote that and uh,
Speaker 7: oh my god, Christmas. For a long time, you couldn't
Speaker 7: find it we couldn't find it.
Speaker 4: Oh, they had to reissue it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and and the Blind Boys they did some songs
Speaker 7: from that album.
Speaker 4: But I got to hear twenty five. That was my favorite.
Speaker 4: It was so maybewhere.
Speaker 6: My May, Julie last all good September October.
Speaker 4: No them, It wasn't last Mone of the year.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, twenty fifth day of December.
Speaker 4: Did I leave it or not?
Speaker 2: I mean I kept saying when we were recording it,
Speaker 2: I kept saying the twenty second, twenty first day of December,
Speaker 2: just because it rolled off my tongue Rock and my
Speaker 2: drummer Brian.
Speaker 4: But he goes Nora. I think that's when Larry. You
Speaker 4: gotta get right.
Speaker 2: It's the twenty fifth day in December, not.
Speaker 4: The twenty first day Jesus birthday.
Speaker 6: Yeah, don't get that one right.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, and props brought that posa. Tell me when
Speaker 4: was Jesus born.
Speaker 6: Last mone of the year?
Speaker 4: When was Jesus.
Speaker 6: Born last one of the year? When was bone.
Speaker 12: Last mona?
Speaker 6: The yead you got January, March, April, and May, June, July,
Speaker 6: all good, September, October? No nomboy. It was twenty fifth
Speaker 6: del d seven. Boy, it was the last Money year,
Speaker 6: Born by the Virgin Mary Last Money.
Speaker 4: He was born by the.
Speaker 9: Virgin Mary, Last Money, Born by the Virgin Mary Last.
Speaker 13: Monny we got January, uh huh, February, yeah, mich April, May, June, July,
Speaker 13: all Gus, September No, No, the Denbury It was the
Speaker 13: twenty fifth de d somebody it was.
Speaker 6: The last Money.
Speaker 4: I love it. Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 7: Oh my goodness. Yeah, well we're having Christmas today.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: I love the end of that song, Last Mother the.
Speaker 4: So how low can you go? How low can you go?
Speaker 4: I didn't go down? Oh my god, I didn't go down.
Speaker 4: Whoa how low can you go? I can go down
Speaker 4: very low?
Speaker 6: That is amazing.
Speaker 4: But did you like that when you were younger?
Speaker 7: You know, my voice was so heavy always, and I
Speaker 7: get I take it from my mother and my grandmother.
Speaker 4: They had strong voices.
Speaker 7: But I would Yeah, when I was a kid, it
Speaker 7: was my voice is higher now when I get my
Speaker 7: tonsils removed?
Speaker 4: Oh really, it got higher. Yeah that's so weird.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I would fight. Kids would tell me you
Speaker 6: sound like a boy.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: And when we started traveling, if I called down for breakfast,
Speaker 7: the lady.
Speaker 6: Would say yes, mister Staples, Yes, sir, I said.
Speaker 7: And I heard it so much the last time. I said,
Speaker 7: I'm a lady, and they said, oh, I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 7: but yeah, it's always been uh. I've always had a
Speaker 7: heavy voice. And and I used to sing bass our
Speaker 7: first record. You know what I'm saying, Well, the will
Speaker 7: the Willow who that's insane?
Speaker 4: And how old were you?
Speaker 7: I was a kid, I was like like nine years old.
Speaker 4: That's when uncloudy Day came.
Speaker 6: Oh no, and cloudy Day came when I was thirteen, okay.
Speaker 4: Twelve thirteen. But but.
Speaker 7: They wanted to record us when I was a kid,
Speaker 7: and Pops wouldn't allow it. The president of VJ Records,
Speaker 7: Vivian Carter, she called Daddy. She said, she says, Stap,
Speaker 7: those kids, y'all need to be on record. And Pop said, well, Vivian,
Speaker 7: I don't know nothing about those records.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He was all of us were green, we did, you know?
Speaker 7: And he said, I'm not gonna let my children get
Speaker 7: on those records.
Speaker 2: He was afraid because he was too young, right, he
Speaker 2: didn't know.
Speaker 4: What would business of it. Wow.
Speaker 7: And my sister Yvonne, she would go, she would and
Speaker 7: got books. She got this big read book, this business
Speaker 7: of music.
Speaker 4: She learned. She helped him a lot. Really people, Oh yeah, she.
Speaker 2: Got that book and help you guys figure out that's incredible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she sure did. She stayed right with him, you know,
Speaker 6: booking and and she.
Speaker 4: Taught him a lot.
Speaker 7: But also people like the Soulists and and uh sister
Speaker 7: Maya Jackson, they were already recording and they would tell
Speaker 7: Daddy different things. You know, they would tell him, you know,
Speaker 7: what to do and how.
Speaker 4: To do and watch out for this.
Speaker 7: So when I was about twelve, perhaps called Vivian and
Speaker 7: told her. He said, okay, Vivia, we'll make that recognized.
Speaker 7: Let my children.
Speaker 2: And after he'd read the book, Yeah, yeah, he felt good.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because Pops, Pops didn't know. You know, we didn't
Speaker 7: We were just singing. He used to sing with an
Speaker 7: all male group, six guys, and these guys wouldn't come
Speaker 7: to rehearsal, so Poss would be frustrated.
Speaker 4: He'd come home mad.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: He came home that third time and he went in
Speaker 7: the closet, pulled out a little guitar that he had.
Speaker 4: We didn't even know he had a guitar. He couldn't
Speaker 4: play it. He could play it.
Speaker 7: He couldn't have all the strings, but he could make
Speaker 7: it sound good. And he told my Aunt Katy, he said,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna sing with my children. He called all of
Speaker 7: us into the living room, sit us down on the
Speaker 7: floor in the circle, and began giving us voices that
Speaker 7: he and his sisters and brothers used to sing when
Speaker 7: they were in Mississippi.
Speaker 4: That's incredible.
Speaker 7: People thought we were old people when we were We
Speaker 7: would go places and they just knew we were old.
Speaker 4: They heard us, and.
Speaker 7: Because because we had a little radio fifteen minute radio
Speaker 7: show Sunday morning, and we would sing, and they thought
Speaker 7: we were old people because Pops, we were singing those
Speaker 7: old voices like his sisters and brothers. We would walk
Speaker 7: in little stairsteps and they said, that's the stables sing already.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but that's yeah.
Speaker 7: He would give us those voices and and that's how
Speaker 7: we started singing. My Aunt Katie lived with us, okay,
Speaker 7: and she came through one night.
Speaker 4: She says, Chuck, y'all sound pretty good. And my church Sonday,
Speaker 4: had you already been singing in church your whole lives?
Speaker 7: No, yeah, we've been singing. We hadn't do as the family,
Speaker 7: we hadn't been singing in church. We didn't start we
Speaker 7: started doing programs at churches. But but uh, my sister
Speaker 7: and brother were in the young people's choir.
Speaker 4: I was too young to go. Okay, yeah, so you
Speaker 4: didn't really sing much until he started doing it, until
Speaker 4: he started using what's your order? There's five of you kids.
Speaker 4: I'm the baby, you're the baby. Yeah, okay, bubbles, I
Speaker 4: get it now. Yeah, I'm the baby.
Speaker 6: Oh no, Cynthia, I was the baby for twelve years.
Speaker 4: Oh wow. And my baby sister came along, and you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't like how did that go?
Speaker 6: I didn't like that.
Speaker 7: I would be putting diapers on that baby and I
Speaker 7: stick up. Mama said maybe you were sticking that.
Speaker 4: I said no, ma'am mama.
Speaker 7: But Cynthia and I became the best of friends. We
Speaker 7: became the t I called her blessed, and she called
Speaker 7: me Rabel. She couldn't say my name Rabel, and and
Speaker 7: uh oh we she was, uh yeah, she was, she was.
Speaker 7: I told Papa, I said, we gotta put Cynthia. She
Speaker 7: would sing songs with us when we were in Chicago
Speaker 7: at the different churches. You know, but yes, Cynthia, and see,
Speaker 7: Mama and daddy they were just my mother was heavy set,
Speaker 7: so I never knew she was pregnant, you.
Speaker 4: Know, she just happened.
Speaker 7: I didn't know where this baby came from. And they
Speaker 7: told me, uh to pacify me. Uh because when my
Speaker 7: mother came home, she didn't bring the baby. She had
Speaker 7: to leave the baby there, and and and and Mama said,
Speaker 7: you go with with with Roebuck, get to pick up
Speaker 7: the baby. I said, what baby?
Speaker 4: What baby? Oh, my gosh. And uh.
Speaker 7: Then they started telling me that we had this baby,
Speaker 7: and so they let me name her.
Speaker 4: They did, Oh yeah, Cynthia.
Speaker 6: Marie that.
Speaker 4: I named her. Oh boy.
Speaker 7: And see, because because what happened, my father he would
Speaker 7: he would he wouldn't, he wouldn't pass me up. He
Speaker 7: goes straight to that baby of bed or wherever she was.
Speaker 7: And and blowing. He used to blow in my stomach,
Speaker 7: make me laugh.
Speaker 6: Tore me up in the air when he'd come from work.
Speaker 6: And all that stopped.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, yeah, And so somebody should have been around
Speaker 7: to talk to him, let him know he was supposed
Speaker 7: to keep doing that.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I grew up an only child, so It's like just
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine what it was like being in
Speaker 2: a family, Like.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, yeah, it was good being in them.
Speaker 7: We we uh, we would have we would disagree, we
Speaker 7: didn't have any We fuss sometime, but Mama would tell us,
Speaker 7: don't do that. You have to love your sister, and
Speaker 7: and that's your sister. And you all make up apologizing me.
Speaker 7: But you know, Yvonne and Cleatee they would do most.
Speaker 4: Of the argience. Oh yeah, because they were the close
Speaker 4: older That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whenever you guys were traveling, when how old were
Speaker 2: you when you started really traveling around and touring.
Speaker 4: I guess, oh, yes, we were touring.
Speaker 6: Were how old were you.
Speaker 4: In that start?
Speaker 6: I was, I was like about thirteen.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 4: Uncloudy Day was a hit. It was a hit, and
Speaker 4: you were thirteen years old. Uncloudy Day.
Speaker 7: This woman called pop, She says, Staples, this record is
Speaker 7: selling like an R and B. And it turned out
Speaker 7: that it was the first gospel record to sell a million.
Speaker 6: That's insane. It was.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was the first.
Speaker 6: Gospel and and and uh.
Speaker 4: But but we would we would.
Speaker 7: Be we would go to down South, we would go
Speaker 7: to Milwaukee, Gary, all around Chicago and sing and and.
Speaker 6: People would bet the disc jockey.
Speaker 4: When we went to New Orleans.
Speaker 7: Memphis, the disc jockey would get on the radio and say,
Speaker 7: this is little Navy staple. This little girl is singing this.
Speaker 7: People would bet that I was not a little girl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you had that deep.
Speaker 7: I'm saying, well will will oh? Yeah, lord, they tell
Speaker 7: me now, And I.
Speaker 4: Got home.
Speaker 6: I got a home, and you know, I'm a little girl,
Speaker 6: little skinny girl.
Speaker 2: And you're short now, so you're probably I was even shorter.
Speaker 7: I was even shorter. But but but yeah, they would bet.
Speaker 7: And what we would do, we would fool the people.
Speaker 7: We would sing uncodly dady down in harmony.
Speaker 6: Whoa.
Speaker 7: They tell me all of that and then get to
Speaker 7: the end of it, and I come.
Speaker 4: In with, well, will will oh.
Speaker 7: So what happened was my brother at that people would
Speaker 7: be sitting on they all of these people that bet
Speaker 7: that I am not a little girl, and all of
Speaker 7: a sudden, perverse move my brother like he's gonna say,
Speaker 7: and you hear the people, I.
Speaker 4: Told you that wasn't no little girl. I told you
Speaker 4: that one. And I'm easy thene how easy to the mic?
Speaker 7: And they look up and it's really a little girls. Oh,
Speaker 7: we had so much fun with it.
Speaker 2: But that's so fun to travel with your family. Did
Speaker 2: it ever get sticky?
Speaker 4: Nah?
Speaker 2: No, you always anything even throughout through he got older.
Speaker 4: All of it, all of it.
Speaker 7: The only only thing Evonne Clete would argue about saying
Speaker 7: was what to wear.
Speaker 4: One of them wanted to wear this, and one of
Speaker 4: them wanted to wear that.
Speaker 7: And see, because you know my brother he left the
Speaker 7: group in nineteen sixty nine. It hurt me so bad, really,
Speaker 7: because Purvis and I we had this clap. Nobody could
Speaker 7: do that clap the way we would. And he just
Speaker 7: got grown a man, you know me, and they get
Speaker 7: tired of doing what their father.
Speaker 4: Tell them to do. You know.
Speaker 7: He wanted to be his own man. Because Pop's asking.
Speaker 7: Pop said, perr, you sure you don't want to just
Speaker 7: take a leave of accent, No, daddy, nope, I quit done.
Speaker 7: And just as he quit, I'll take you there, hit Oh,
Speaker 7: And and his friends would would mess with him.
Speaker 4: He go into one.
Speaker 7: Of their bars or whatever, and they put a quarter
Speaker 7: in the juke box and play I'll take you there.
Speaker 4: Said, y'all shouldn't do that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he did all right he he he managed
Speaker 6: the emotions.
Speaker 4: For a while. Oh wow, so he got into the business. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 4: he was still in the business. He was still on
Speaker 4: the other side of it, right right.
Speaker 7: They were They were gospel singers at first, and they
Speaker 7: were our little friends, the hutcheson Sunbeams. I mean, they
Speaker 7: wanted to sing R and B and so that's when
Speaker 7: Purvis took them down the stacks, got him a choreographer,
Speaker 7: tarts steps.
Speaker 4: They had some hits then.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's amazing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's amazing to me how close you guys
Speaker 2: stayed and that there was let you know, there could.
Speaker 4: Have been a lot of drama there.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, oh yeah. But but but but my mother
Speaker 6: wouldn't allow it. Mama and Daddy, you.
Speaker 4: Know, they just taught us. They they taught us. We
Speaker 4: grew up loving one another.
Speaker 2: That's so special though, and it's it really feels unique.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, you're an only child, but I
Speaker 2: do have a half sister who's two years younger than me,
Speaker 2: but we both grew up separately, so we didn't know
Speaker 2: each other till we were a little older. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: but yeah, only child. That sounds like a party to me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because some are you spoiled? Of course you are.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but if you ask my mother, she
Speaker 2: would tell you a different answer.
Speaker 6: Well, you know I met your mom, Yeah you did.
Speaker 4: She's very tall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man, she is tall. She's tall, yeah, and
Speaker 2: I'm short. She's five to ten. I'm five to one.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I didn't really.
Speaker 2: I might have been spoiled, but I never messed with
Speaker 2: her like I was a good kid, because I didn't
Speaker 2: want her to get mad.
Speaker 4: She was so oh yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she was tough, and by her being so tall,
Speaker 6: you say I've been, I messed with her.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But all you had to do was leap up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I don't think that would have flown with her.
Speaker 4: You did the right thing. Listen to mom. Mom knows best.
Speaker 7: I try, Yeah, you try try.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I was wondering. Do you remember the first
Speaker 2: song you sang with Pops when he was teaching you?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 7: The very first song my father taught us was what
Speaker 7: the Circle Beyond?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love that.
Speaker 6: One of the Circle Beyond broke and all that was
Speaker 6: his faith. And on our records we recorded it about
Speaker 6: four or five times, but on the record Pops is singing,
Speaker 6: and I love to hear Pop sing because he was
Speaker 6: so smooth. You know, he was a singer like you.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 6: He was laid back.
Speaker 7: Look, Sladh Stone came to Pops one day and said, hey, Pop,
Speaker 7: give me the bag, and Pop say what you're talking about?
Speaker 4: He said, come on, mom, give me the bag. I
Speaker 4: know you got.
Speaker 2: It because he was so laid back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they thought.
Speaker 6: And purpose my brother had to tell Daddy what I
Speaker 6: was talking about. And Pop he says, like, you come,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna choke you boy. You know I don't do that.
Speaker 4: Mass too funny. Yeah, wow, it was so funny.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because they would all talk about how.
Speaker 7: Laid back Pop sing, you know, and and his voice
Speaker 7: is just flowed.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But when he taught us circle be Unbroken and and
Speaker 6: and we have sang it. We sang it with Johnny
Speaker 6: Cash on his television show. It was the Staples family
Speaker 6: and the Carter family. That was years ago.
Speaker 4: That must have been fun. It was fun. Yeah.
Speaker 7: It was for one of one of his specials, you know.
Speaker 4: Those TV special Yeah.
Speaker 7: I love yeah, but but and I sing it all
Speaker 7: that's on my on my list on our show and
Speaker 7: perhaps may uh, because we look at us as a family.
Speaker 4: That's our circle.
Speaker 7: And he put us in a circle when he started
Speaker 7: giving us the voices to sing.
Speaker 4: It was I can just picture it. You're sitting down
Speaker 4: in the circle.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm gonna sing some of it for you.
Speaker 4: You sing it to you know. I don't know what
Speaker 4: key I.
Speaker 6: Sing in now you know that.
Speaker 14: I was thinking, g.
Speaker 6: I was stegning too low?
Speaker 5: Huh?
Speaker 4: Is that too low?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: That's good. What you say, key that is?
Speaker 7: That's g okay, that's a shame. I don't know what
Speaker 7: ky I sing at.
Speaker 4: No, it's not probably has changed over the years.
Speaker 7: I'd probably a yeah, I sing in some different keys
Speaker 7: though in our shoulders.
Speaker 4: But it's all right. I don't need to know what
Speaker 4: yeah I say. I can do it in any key.
Speaker 4: You just tell me.
Speaker 6: Oh, no, you were I think that was good. I
Speaker 6: was stinning and that's where you were.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And on a cold and cloud any day.
Speaker 4: When I saw the hers come rolling.
Speaker 6: Or to care my mother the away, Well, it's a circle.
Speaker 6: Be row can.
Speaker 8: By and by lord by and bye.
Speaker 4: Here's a bed.
Speaker 6: Hold away in the sky Lord and the scot.
Speaker 11: Wo.
Speaker 4: I told the.
Speaker 6: Under take, please drive slow cause it's lady that you
Speaker 6: haul land. Oh why to see her go.
Speaker 8: Will the circles being broken.
Speaker 5: By and by Lord, by bye, there's a.
Speaker 6: Bed home away in the sky Lord in the sky.
Speaker 6: I will follower close behind her.
Speaker 11: Try to hold up and be brave, but I could not.
Speaker 4: Pull my side role.
Speaker 6: Winner laid her in the grain in the circle.
Speaker 4: Be broken.
Speaker 15: Bye and bye, bye and bye.
Speaker 6: There's a bad uh my way in the sky.
Speaker 16: Lord in the sky in the sky, love him the
Speaker 16: sky in the sky, Lord in the sky.
Speaker 4: Oh you sound just like Cleedy?
Speaker 6: Oh really? Oh yeah? I Cleedy in your foot girl,
Speaker 6: don't stop me crying.
Speaker 7: I tell you my sister Kleedye. She had the best
Speaker 7: best soprano voice.
Speaker 4: Really so you were low and she was high. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you come from it.
Speaker 6: And I credit her for the Staples singer sound.
Speaker 7: Really oh yeah, oh wow. She would shoot and look.
Speaker 7: Aretha would be recording and she tell her sister Carolyn, Now, Carolyn,
Speaker 7: want to sound like cleother.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 7: And and and Carolyn was saying, Carolyn told me about it.
Speaker 6: She said, maybe's I told her I can't sound like.
Speaker 7: Cleop She was mad about it, mad oh yeah, but
Speaker 7: it's a different Pops give Cley like a minor. She
Speaker 7: would go like, I know what I'm talking about, minor
Speaker 7: in some places.
Speaker 4: And but her boys, if you on all of our.
Speaker 7: Old stuff where Coletia is singing, her voice stands out,
Speaker 7: and and and her her soprano, and Popsa's guitar, that's
Speaker 7: the staple of singers.
Speaker 4: I love his guitar so much.
Speaker 2: And he cool taught himself, well, that's what's good about it.
Speaker 2: It's just feeling right. It's simple, but it's it's got
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 4: That's what it's got, the sound, feeling right.
Speaker 2: When did he how did he get that electric sound?
Speaker 2: Do you know how that came about?
Speaker 4: Pop?
Speaker 6: I remember when he got that tremolo.
Speaker 4: Because that wasn't typical then, no gospel music.
Speaker 7: No and and and and some preachers, some preachers didn't
Speaker 7: want to contemplay his guitar in the church. And Pop
Speaker 7: said to let him know, look, you read your Bible
Speaker 7: string instruments, saying the Bible, you know the heart. The
Speaker 7: Pop would name them all. I guess, uh, what's that
Speaker 7: other one? I can't call the name of it. But
Speaker 7: but but and and and we just wouldn't go to
Speaker 7: the church if they wouldn't let Pops playing his guitar.
Speaker 7: But he learned from a blues man, Charlie Patton.
Speaker 6: Okay, see he.
Speaker 7: Pop Pops was on this farm, Patrick Practice Farm in Mississippi,
Speaker 7: and this man was hollering with a lot of the
Speaker 7: blues singers were on this this farm, and and and uh.
Speaker 7: Pops would tell us how this man, Charlie Patton would
Speaker 7: be playing and and look, we didn't know for years.
Speaker 7: While we were singing gospel, our father was playing the
Speaker 7: blues on.
Speaker 4: His Yeah, that's what it is. It's the marriage of
Speaker 4: those two things. And that made it so unique, right
Speaker 4: right right.
Speaker 7: But he he he, he went to the guitar store
Speaker 7: one day and he came back.
Speaker 4: With this trimolo.
Speaker 7: He said, y'all, let said listen to this, and he
Speaker 7: was drum and Elvis Presley told me one time, the
Speaker 7: first time, yeah, the only time I ever saw him.
Speaker 7: And the first time I ever saw him, we were
Speaker 7: in Memphis and I was standing on the side.
Speaker 6: It was a starlight review outside.
Speaker 7: And I was standing over in the wing, and all
Speaker 7: of a sudden he come in with one of his partners.
Speaker 7: They got these leather jackets on like they've been riding motorcycles,
Speaker 7: and and and we had sang and and uh. He
Speaker 7: told me, he said, I like the way your father
Speaker 7: played that guitar. I said, well, thank you. He said, yeah,
Speaker 7: he plays a nervous.
Speaker 4: Guitar, A nervous guitar. He called it a nervous guitar.
Speaker 4: What does that mean? Because of them? That was a
Speaker 4: good expression.
Speaker 7: I said, well, I've never heard that before, A nervous guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that's what I'll never forget. And that was my meeting
Speaker 7: with Elvis Presley. I didn't know who one of the guys,
Speaker 7: David Ruffin who sing who later sang with the Temptation
Speaker 7: he was singing with a gospel.
Speaker 4: He told me, he said, maybe you know who that
Speaker 4: guy what you was talking to? I said no. He
Speaker 4: said blue Sways shoes. I said, I said, that's him.
Speaker 4: That's the way he would let me know because of
Speaker 4: blue sweight shoes.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 6: But yeah, Pops played a nervous guitar.
Speaker 4: Did he laugh at that description?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: Did he laugh? He did? He laugh?
Speaker 6: He told me, maybe, why didn't you call me over
Speaker 6: to let me me? I said, Daddy, I didn't really
Speaker 6: know who he was. I was just a David told
Speaker 6: me who he was. Yeah, that was beautiful.
Speaker 7: That's a good expression of him though. Of Pops is
Speaker 7: guitar nervous guitar because it does.
Speaker 4: That's just the funniest thing I've heard.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, but but yeah, Daddy, that's that's when he
Speaker 7: learned how to play his guitar. And he was always
Speaker 7: playing it in the house, you know, after he'd let
Speaker 7: us know we had a guitar, because we didn't know
Speaker 7: until those guys wouldn't come to rehearsal.
Speaker 4: And he decided he probably.
Speaker 7: We probably wouldn't be any Staples singers if they had
Speaker 7: they had come to rehearsal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I thank them wow for being not not there,
Speaker 4: not not serious about this.
Speaker 7: They were the trumpet to and they had a good
Speaker 7: group too, Possle singing lead and uh and Pops had
Speaker 7: a voice. He would he he never went into his
Speaker 7: false settle on the Staple singers.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, he would go and he would tell me
Speaker 6: what how they do it up in heaven today and
Speaker 6: then he goes pee thereby there like a river.
Speaker 7: They say, oh possible bad. Yeah, And I recorded a
Speaker 7: song with Tweety that's what.
Speaker 6: Are they doing in heaven. I'm not singing it like.
Speaker 4: Pops though, Well that's okay. You sing like you. I
Speaker 4: thing like me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I sing like me.
Speaker 7: I'm so grateful to be talking to you, little lady.
Speaker 6: You are.
Speaker 7: You are so different from anybody else out here.
Speaker 4: Really, Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 7: Sounding like you.
Speaker 6: Nobody get me up break But that's what show.
Speaker 4: But that's what you want, right to be, to be different, right,
Speaker 4: and but but I'm just honored.
Speaker 7: You know, dude, I never thought I would meet you
Speaker 7: when I first heard you on the radio.
Speaker 4: Don't know why. I said, listen to who is she?
Speaker 4: Who is she? I'm still figuring it out.
Speaker 6: Yes, well no, well you you are a giant. You
Speaker 6: a tiny little lady.
Speaker 4: You are a giant. I tell you, I love it.
Speaker 7: And when I came to your show in the Red Rocks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did a show together. Yes, Yes, that was fun.
Speaker 4: I started it off.
Speaker 6: I warmed them up for you.
Speaker 2: You killed it, and I was nervous to go on out.
Speaker 2: I was, of course.
Speaker 7: I those people, all those people that came out for you,
Speaker 7: and and and I noticed you were doing.
Speaker 4: Some songs that I hadn't heard.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and every time you would hit one of those songs,
Speaker 7: the crowd would roar, that's.
Speaker 2: So funny, that's what Well, that's one of my favorite
Speaker 2: audiences at Red Rocks, and they're always very loving.
Speaker 4: You play there many times, right, Yes, yeah, we.
Speaker 7: Have we have oh with different people. Yours was the best.
Speaker 7: We had fun.
Speaker 4: We have fun.
Speaker 2: We had recorded a song together that Pete Ran wrote.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember it, but I was
Speaker 2: wondering if you feel like trying it.
Speaker 7: Oh, it'll come to me as you go, because I
Speaker 7: that's been a while.
Speaker 4: What happened? Anyway? We were supposed to go on tour
Speaker 4: with that song.
Speaker 2: We were gonna go on tour and then the pandemic hit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were gonna do a bunch of shows together.
Speaker 4: Yes, I remember. I was so happy.
Speaker 6: Me too. Oh man, we will again because it again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, really, we will just do it again. We do
Speaker 4: it again and set it up. You set it up.
Speaker 4: There's a play pies.
Speaker 8: Five from here.
Speaker 6: Going to make it my homes swear I've been a lone.
Speaker 4: Where I get.
Speaker 8: Where I'm going, I'll be gone, I'll be gone.
Speaker 4: Where my horse get so tired.
Speaker 6: That candy tail time, don't you crie?
Speaker 4: M When I gain.
Speaker 15: Where I'm going, I'll be gone. I'll be gone.
Speaker 17: Where sha I could tell you that the sun was
Speaker 17: gonna shine.
Speaker 4: I've got a feeling.
Speaker 6: That I still want change my mind running out of
Speaker 6: the tide. There's a place on the mountain you can
Speaker 6: take my bones. But I go home.
Speaker 4: When I get.
Speaker 15: Where I'm going, I'll be.
Speaker 8: Gone, I'll be gone.
Speaker 6: I got to tell you that it's all going to
Speaker 6: be just find.
Speaker 12: But I don't wanna.
Speaker 6: Waste anymore of your time. You didn't waste mind. Oh
Speaker 6: now you're talk about a beautiful song.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful songs. He wrote this a long time ago, really, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean maybe eight years nine years ago. And yeah,
Speaker 2: at one point he mentioned, gosh, it would be cool
Speaker 2: to hear maybe his sing this.
Speaker 4: So I was like, you're right, but yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm I'm a little shy sometimes I have a
Speaker 2: hard time reaching out and asking to do things.
Speaker 13: But don't be that way with me, Okay, now you
Speaker 13: know it don't come to me anything but anything.
Speaker 2: But it came full circle, but not for like five
Speaker 2: more years and then and then I got unshy and
Speaker 2: I asked you to sing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I was so that that blew
Speaker 4: my mind. I said, oh wow, it's a great one.
Speaker 6: That's what I wish. I could play up anything.
Speaker 4: And you never picked anything up.
Speaker 6: I picked up the guitar.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I told Pops I wanted to play that guitar. And
Speaker 7: he's tried to teach me, but he didn't. He wasn't
Speaker 7: taught either. So and and then it.
Speaker 6: Was a time when Pops was still frisky.
Speaker 4: I was young. What does that mean.
Speaker 6: I mean he wasn't readily okay, didn't.
Speaker 2: Have the patient I think I took it the wrong way.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't man going out on mama.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know that's that's frisky. But no, he just
Speaker 6: wasn't patient enough.
Speaker 7: So he gave me about he got me a little
Speaker 7: training guitar, and he gave me about three lessons and
Speaker 7: he was done. He said, maybe I'll tell you what, baby.
Speaker 7: You go down to Lion Heally And I'm eleven years old.
Speaker 7: I don't know how to.
Speaker 6: Go downtown to line Healey.
Speaker 4: To get lessons.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, yeah, to get lessons from them.
Speaker 7: And I told him, I said, Daddy, I want to
Speaker 7: pick it like you and sister Rose at the Thark.
Speaker 7: I don't want to, you know, but but if I
Speaker 7: had learned, if I had learned how to strum, I
Speaker 7: think that would have made it easier for him to
Speaker 7: teach me.
Speaker 4: You know, to pick. Picking is harder, harder.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know, I know that's but but but I
Speaker 7: would have been happy strumming.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about when you guys met
Speaker 2: doctor Martin Luther King and you kind of switched from
Speaker 2: singing gospel to singing these freedom songs protest songs. I
Speaker 2: read something about Pops meeting him and saying he wants
Speaker 2: to sing his words.
Speaker 4: That is the most beautiful thing I've heard. That was something. Yeah, Pops,
Speaker 4: he it just happened.
Speaker 7: We were in Montgomery, Alabama, on Sunday morning. We didn't
Speaker 7: have to work until that night, and Pops called my
Speaker 7: sisters and I to his room and he told us,
Speaker 7: he said, listen, y'all, this man Martin is here, Martin
Speaker 7: Luther King, and he has a church here.
Speaker 6: He said, I've been listening to him on the radio.
Speaker 6: Doctor King had a radio show.
Speaker 7: And Pops had been listening to him, and he said,
Speaker 7: I'd like to go to his eleven o'clock service.
Speaker 4: Do you all want to go, Yeah, Daddy, we wanna go.
Speaker 7: We all got in the car, went down the decks
Speaker 7: to Avenue Baptist Church and and we were ushered in
Speaker 7: and seated. Someone let Doctor L. King know that we
Speaker 7: were in the service, and he acknowledged us.
Speaker 6: He said, we got to have Poper Staples and his
Speaker 6: daughter's here this morning. Hope you enjoyed the service. Well,
Speaker 6: we enjoyed the service.
Speaker 7: And that at as the the service is over, the worshipers,
Speaker 7: Doctor King stands at the door to shake the worshiper's
Speaker 7: hands as as they filed out, and Pops walked past
Speaker 7: shook his hand. Now, my sisters and I did first
Speaker 7: we shoot, We shoot doctor King. Oh that was a feeling.
Speaker 7: I shook his hand and Pops we had to wait
Speaker 7: on him. He stood there and talked to him for
Speaker 7: a while. He finally came on. We get back to
Speaker 7: the hotel. He called us to his room again and
Speaker 7: he said, listen, y'all, I l this man's message. I
Speaker 7: really like his message, and I think that if he
Speaker 7: can preach it, we can sing it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: And we started writing freedom songs. March up Freedom Highway?
Speaker 7: Why am I treated so bad?
Speaker 4: We we we we.
Speaker 7: We switched over because we didn't feel that it was
Speaker 7: anything wrong. We felt like this was close to gospel. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, we singing the truth, you know.
Speaker 6: We we we we wanna we want We joined the
Speaker 6: movement and and uh we would sing. We would sing
Speaker 6: before Doctor King would speak.
Speaker 7: We'd go to the meetings and Doctor King would tell Pop, stay,
Speaker 7: you're gonna sing my song the night right probably say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 7: doctor were gonna sing your song?
Speaker 4: Why am I treated so bad? Yeah?
Speaker 7: That was his favorite, and and and and people asked
Speaker 7: me what did He never talked to us girls. He
Speaker 7: never sit down, and he would just he would just
Speaker 7: say something, how you girls doing this morning?
Speaker 4: Y'all doing all right? Yes, sir doctor King? Wow.
Speaker 7: But he wouldn't sit in hold and Pops would talk.
Speaker 7: People ask me, what did he talk to you about?
Speaker 7: What he didn't talk to me?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: But what what I did remember mostly Doctor King was
Speaker 7: his laughter. He had this laughter when he laughed, because
Speaker 7: most of the time I would see him, he either
Speaker 7: looked sad or serious, you know, And when I'd hear
Speaker 7: him laugh, that would make my heart happy because I said,
Speaker 7: doctor King's happy, And that would be most of the
Speaker 7: time when we'd be going to the meeting and the
Speaker 7: men would be in a huddle down in the parking lot,
Speaker 7: and all of a sudden, you hear doctor King laughing.
Speaker 4: That made me feel so good.
Speaker 7: But no, he never held a conversation with my sisters
Speaker 7: and I.
Speaker 4: He was just asking that.
Speaker 7: He said the same way every time you girls doing
Speaker 7: this morning.
Speaker 4: Wow, how much older was he?
Speaker 2: You were young?
Speaker 4: Still? I was young? Yeah? How young were you then?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm just I.
Speaker 7: Was well in the sixties sixty This was like about
Speaker 7: sixty three, nineteen sixty three, so I was born in
Speaker 7: thirty nine.
Speaker 4: I'm not good at math. You were in your you
Speaker 4: were in your early twenties.
Speaker 7: Oh, let's say you know, yeah, I was in my
Speaker 7: early twenties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and uh.
Speaker 6: But but that was when we joined the movement and
Speaker 6: we became.
Speaker 4: The soundtrack you did. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Congressman John Lewis would tell oh, he was my friend.
Speaker 6: Now he was my friend.
Speaker 7: And I went to his office when I did a
Speaker 7: Freedom album with Ray Koto, and I asked him if
Speaker 7: he would write my liner notes, and he said, baby,
Speaker 7: you know, you and your family, y'all kept us motivated,
Speaker 7: kept us inspired.
Speaker 4: To keep on watching your songs.
Speaker 7: I said, yes, sir, not because after surprised he remembered me. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I said you, I hadn't seen him in the years,
Speaker 7: and uh, I was surprised.
Speaker 4: He gave me a meeting and.
Speaker 18: His of course he remembered he didn't remember me, baby,
Speaker 18: your family, and and so he I hate I missed
Speaker 18: his birthday, invited me to his last birthday party.
Speaker 7: And I couldn't go. We were working, you know, But
Speaker 7: but he was my friend to the end. Yeah, Congressman
Speaker 7: John Lewis.
Speaker 4: That's beautiful, Uncle John, Uncle John.
Speaker 2: When you guys were writing songs, was everybody was collectively
Speaker 2: just sort of pitching in?
Speaker 4: Did Pops always yeah? Was he Did he ever work
Speaker 4: on songwriting like on his own all the time? Or yeah?
Speaker 4: He did.
Speaker 7: Pops was always jotting something down, you know, and and
Speaker 7: we would help him. We would put some words in
Speaker 7: on this on But but that's Daddy's something we we
Speaker 7: don't want any credit for, okay, right, and we give
Speaker 7: them to Daddy, all of us. Interesting, Yeah, we we
Speaker 7: we dropped drop words and he can march of Freedom's Highway.
Speaker 7: Made up my mind and I won't turn around, made
Speaker 7: up mine. And there's this one thing I can't understand,
Speaker 7: my friend, that I'm proud of that because that was
Speaker 7: me Why some folk think freedom was not designed for
Speaker 7: all men? There are so many people living their life perplexed.
Speaker 4: Wondering in their minds, what's going.
Speaker 7: To happen next. That's why we're going to march, you know.
Speaker 7: That was the very first one we wrote for the movement.
Speaker 7: And boy, we moved on. We and and uh we
Speaker 7: were seeing that. We sing, oh, why am I treating
Speaker 7: so bad? Possible that because of the there were nine
Speaker 7: children in Little Rock, Arkansas, trying to integrate Central High School.
Speaker 4: They would meet people.
Speaker 7: They these kids would walk up there every day their
Speaker 7: books in their arms, proud, and people would throw stones
Speaker 7: at them, spit at them, call.
Speaker 6: Them names, but they never turned their head. They just
Speaker 6: kept walking.
Speaker 4: That's amazing. Oh and these they were my age, they
Speaker 4: were you know.
Speaker 7: So we would all be on the floor popsing his
Speaker 7: recliner and were watching the news. It got so bad
Speaker 7: and it lasted so long. The mayor of Arkansas, of
Speaker 7: Little Rock, the governor of Arkansas, and the President of
Speaker 7: the United States said, let those children go to school,
Speaker 7: and whoa I wanted to if we all wanted to
Speaker 7: see this on the news. That particular day, the kids
Speaker 7: were walking. They get right up to the bus and
Speaker 7: a policeman put his billy club across the door, and
Speaker 7: Pop said, right there, and he said, how why is
Speaker 7: he doing that? Why are they treating him so bad?
Speaker 7: And he wrote that song from that experience.
Speaker 6: I tell you, we have had a baby's sister, I have.
Speaker 4: I have seen a lot. I have seen a lot,
Speaker 4: and and it.
Speaker 7: Just makes me more prayerful and more willing to sing
Speaker 7: my songs, you know, because I I don't have to
Speaker 7: sing love. I don't have to be like everybody else.
Speaker 7: I've seen protest songs. I sing to help us.
Speaker 2: Move it forward, moving forward, right, moving it forward, right,
Speaker 2: and we're still going.
Speaker 4: We're still going. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And and I owe it to Pop's I owe it
Speaker 6: to my father. You know.
Speaker 7: We went to South Africa and these people wanted us
Speaker 7: to sing, want the black people to be in the
Speaker 7: balcony Johannesburg, And Pops told him, he said, no, I'm
Speaker 7: anna allow my children to sing like he said. Doctor
Speaker 7: King just got that straightened out in the States, and
Speaker 7: we're not gonna sing like that. They said, now you
Speaker 7: can send us home. Do what you got to do.
Speaker 7: We're not singing like. So they moved our show to
Speaker 7: the soccer field and so waito, wow, it's a wait,
Speaker 7: it's all it's all black.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 7: You know, this is where the people live in little
Speaker 7: match boxes. And it was the very first time that
Speaker 7: blacks and white sit together, no kind of I mean
Speaker 7: that that soccer field was backed yeah, and and black
Speaker 7: and white were sitting right next to each other. And
Speaker 7: but they had these I've never seen a German shepherd
Speaker 7: dog so big. The bit the police was walking around
Speaker 7: with them, you know, I guess for just in case
Speaker 7: something went wrong.
Speaker 4: But it was peaceful.
Speaker 7: But see, during that time, they wouldn't let us go
Speaker 7: downtown by ourselves.
Speaker 4: That must have been hard to go at all it was.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't allow it.
Speaker 7: The kids would tell me, if we will call you,
Speaker 7: we will come see you. If they call my my.
Speaker 4: Calls would go to the white girl's room.
Speaker 6: She would be there and she would she would take
Speaker 6: her and she wouldn't let the kids talk to me.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't let them in the hotel.
Speaker 6: That It was very educational, very beautiful experience and.
Speaker 4: Intense intense, intense.
Speaker 2: Yes, you've been on tour though since the podemic a lot.
Speaker 2: You've got to tour in these little pockets. And I'm
Speaker 2: really excited to hear that I haven't at all yet.
Speaker 2: What I just haven't not since the the COVID started.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you know, I'm excited that you're out there
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I'm going everywhere you're going.
Speaker 4: And we booked now through November. You're doing a tour
Speaker 4: with Bonnie Ray the Center. I always do it. That's amazing.
Speaker 4: That'll be my third tour.
Speaker 2: We've known her a long time, right, Oh, yes, she's great.
Speaker 2: You know that's going to be a show.
Speaker 4: I tell you. Oh, it's always good show. Yeah.
Speaker 7: But I used to be jellous of Bonnie. My father
Speaker 7: loved us so much.
Speaker 4: You're jealous.
Speaker 7: And I told us, I said, look, I didn't know
Speaker 7: if I should get some red hair, or if I
Speaker 7: should learn how to play to get taught, or if
Speaker 7: I should get real tiny because poss love. Yeah, and
Speaker 7: she loved she came to see she came to the
Speaker 7: hospital Seapop when he was sick. Wow, And and Bonnie
Speaker 7: took me so bad. Pop went upstairs.
Speaker 6: He wasn't feeling good, and he went upstairs to lie down.
Speaker 6: She followed him. She sit on the bed and she said,
Speaker 6: now nobody can tell me I haven't been in pop
Speaker 6: Stable bed.
Speaker 2: That's Bonnie, Yeah, that's Bonnie.
Speaker 7: It was funny, Yeah, it's funny, but it was so good.
Speaker 7: Made Possib feel so much better. He gave her a guitar.
Speaker 7: He had to get there, and all of us were there.
Speaker 7: We sang, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: It was it was.
Speaker 2: Isn't it something? How music keeps you going? Yes, it
Speaker 2: really keeps Yes, it keeps you young, It keeps you young,
Speaker 2: and it's healing. Yeah, and it brings joy.
Speaker 4: And right, and we can't do without music. I know,
Speaker 4: no way.
Speaker 2: I get that feeling from you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, yeah, I passed it on the passing it,
Speaker 7: but well, I tell you, yours brought me so much.
Speaker 2: I wish could, Oh, I wish I could play watch
Speaker 2: him play guitar in the person.
Speaker 4: You know what you would do?
Speaker 6: He would tell me that's the way. Oh no, that's
Speaker 6: you know who else?
Speaker 2: You know who else gave me that feeling? Always was
Speaker 2: Levon Helm Is that right?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: He gave me that.
Speaker 2: Feeling where he just it was just all music and
Speaker 2: it kept.
Speaker 4: Him going and just you know, oh man, And.
Speaker 2: I remember the first time I saw you on TV,
Speaker 2: was watching The Weight on the Last Walls and I thought,
Speaker 2: my goodness, she is beautiful.
Speaker 4: And she's smoking all of that. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I was just like, and you looked six feet tall,
Speaker 2: and you look so tall.
Speaker 4: For me, it's yes, yeah you do. We had on
Speaker 4: those long black gown.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It was beautiful.
Speaker 6: Oh man.
Speaker 2: I mean I'd heard your singing my whole life, but
Speaker 2: it was the first time I zerre it in and visually.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was nice. I know you had our
Speaker 4: long friendship with Levon.
Speaker 7: Oh lord Levon. I have an album coming out with Levonne.
Speaker 7: Wow and and and uh.
Speaker 6: We we did it at his barn and he was
Speaker 6: right next to me and with them drums.
Speaker 4: But but I tell you about it.
Speaker 7: When we when we were doing les Walt, Levon was
Speaker 7: smoking and Pops went back to we had a break, Levon,
Speaker 7: Pops go back. They were tight buddies Levon and Pops said, Levon, man,
Speaker 7: you smoking two cigarettes. He had a cigarette and Levon said, all.
Speaker 4: You gotta try this one. I don't think they were
Speaker 4: the same. Yeah, they were not the same.
Speaker 7: Papa said, Levon, I don't think that messed but that
Speaker 7: that Daddy laughed about that forever.
Speaker 4: He laughed about that.
Speaker 7: But yeah, Levonne, that was the best time because we
Speaker 7: stayed there about a week. We you know, we would
Speaker 7: go back to the barn every day from the hotel.
Speaker 4: And making the record.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when did you make it? About ten years ago?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, because I was gonna say, look, are you
Speaker 7: all gonna release this record? Am I going to be?
Speaker 7: Didn't gone or what? But yeah, they it's coming I
Speaker 7: think in May.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 4: It's been a long time and I love it.
Speaker 2: You know that he's gone, especially, it'll be so special, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And Amy Amy helped, you know. I told her to
Speaker 7: tell her about it. I said, Amy, the didn't need
Speaker 7: to release the record. Yeah, you know, we end up
Speaker 7: in age and we might leave here me so she said,
Speaker 7: you gotta going good. But yeah, that was that was
Speaker 7: a proud time.
Speaker 2: Did you do what the songs? Did you do with Levan?
Speaker 2: Did you do all old songs? Did you do that
Speaker 2: that Nina Simone version, that's a Billy Taylor song, isn't it.
Speaker 2: I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
Speaker 4: That's a Billy Taylor song.
Speaker 2: That's what my my my phone said when I googled it,
Speaker 2: because I mean the Nina version is. But I think
Speaker 2: it's that Billy Taylor wrote it, really, and I it's
Speaker 2: so funny. I saw him play. Yeah, And when I
Speaker 2: was in high school, I didn't realize that. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a great song. Did you record that with Levan? Yeah?
Speaker 7: I wish I knew. And and we recorded Trouble in Mine? Oh,
Speaker 7: I love that one in mine?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and and uh ohh, I love some Nina Nina.
Speaker 4: Did you know her?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 7: Yes, well yeah, yes, And she was someone I met
Speaker 7: whose voice was heavier than mine.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, and boy she was.
Speaker 7: I saw her first saw her in the village gate
Speaker 7: and she had on a white she was playing that
Speaker 7: piano and and and all of.
Speaker 4: The sudden and people dawn. She stopped and stood up.
Speaker 6: Do you people have cotton in your ears?
Speaker 4: Whoa?
Speaker 7: She told them off, because they were talking, you have
Speaker 7: cotton in your ears?
Speaker 6: And I said, whoa, go on, sister, But yeah, we
Speaker 6: got to know, we got to be very good friends.
Speaker 4: That we were.
Speaker 6: We were in the Bahamas, though last time I saw
Speaker 6: her we were in the Bahamas.
Speaker 7: And uh, then she moved to New Guinea where Miriam
Speaker 7: mckibo was and and uh she passed.
Speaker 4: Away over there.
Speaker 7: But but baby's sister, we were in New Guinea, don't
Speaker 7: you know. These little guys they were in the auditorium
Speaker 7: where we were singing.
Speaker 6: They want to have a coup against the president of somebody.
Speaker 4: Oh God. And we got to.
Speaker 7: The show and we're standing at the door, Pops and
Speaker 7: my sister and I and this man is saying that's
Speaker 7: all we could understand was you know, and and he
Speaker 7: was telling them. So they still came in with the guns.
Speaker 7: And they stood on the side of the stage in
Speaker 7: the wings where we were, and as I was singing,
Speaker 7: I would look over there a little bit and it
Speaker 7: would be just dancing.
Speaker 4: That is crazy. Yeah, y'all, don't scared us to death.
Speaker 2: You have gone to some wild times places you've you've
Speaker 2: had it.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeow. Yeah, So we made it through that one.
Speaker 2: I do have one more question, if you feel comfortable
Speaker 2: talking about it. Yeah, I was curious about songwriting and this.
Speaker 2: How were you told me yesterday. Yeah, that broke my heart.
Speaker 7: You know, it's been so long ago that I'm surprised.
Speaker 4: I even brought it up. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 7: Somebody said something about a songwriting and it did this man.
Speaker 7: You know, I had written my three songs and he
Speaker 7: was at Stax Records. He wanted all of my publishing.
Speaker 5: Yea.
Speaker 7: And I'm telling him on the phone, telling him, no,
Speaker 7: I'm singing twelve songs on the album. You know, you
Speaker 7: take all that pubblish but mine. My father's always taught
Speaker 7: me I should get one hundred percent of my writers
Speaker 7: and publishing. And he talked to me like, all right,
Speaker 7: miss Stables, all right, I understand, yes, all right, We'll
Speaker 7: do as you like. And I'm thinking I've won. Yeah,
Speaker 7: the record come out and and it's it's on a
Speaker 7: different label or something, and uh, it's me singing.
Speaker 4: And then they have songwriter unknown and a song you wrote. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the songs that I wrote.
Speaker 7: Wow, And I said, well, you know, it was so
Speaker 7: long ago, you know, no need of me trying to
Speaker 7: fix this now.
Speaker 4: But that broke my heart. And you didn't write after that.
Speaker 4: I didn't write anymore songs.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the sad part. But but you still
Speaker 2: make all songs your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: just you know, that stuff happened so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah back then.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a shame the way people are treated.
Speaker 6: You know, it's not just me, you know. I'm sure
Speaker 6: the record business has.
Speaker 4: Been tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, but it was much trickier
Speaker 4: back then. Yeah, yeah, way back.
Speaker 7: That was and and and and I was doing stuff.
Speaker 7: You know, I was afraid because I was these were
Speaker 7: these were secular songs, yeah, and and and you do
Speaker 7: something secular against the gospel stuff. I was lucky. I
Speaker 7: don't know how it happened. I recorded houses, not a home.
Speaker 7: I recorded a second and and the church people didn't
Speaker 7: say nothing about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you you got in trouble for that.
Speaker 7: I could have got could but they didn't. You know
Speaker 7: what they messed with. I'll take you there. They wanted
Speaker 7: to put us out of church. Wow, they say, the
Speaker 7: stable singers and singing the devil's music. Wow, the devil music.
Speaker 7: I said, you all, you gotta listen to our lyrics.
Speaker 7: They heard this beat and then the people would jump
Speaker 7: up and dance, and I'll take you there, you know,
Speaker 7: because but up until I'll take you there, we just
Speaker 7: sang with my father's guitar.
Speaker 6: We didn't have no rhythm section. Yeah, we just sing
Speaker 6: with dad his guitar.
Speaker 7: And and but when this rhythm section came on, I'll
Speaker 7: take you there singing.
Speaker 4: The Devil's it sounded different.
Speaker 7: Look, we're telling you I know a place. Ain't nobody crying?
Speaker 7: I mean, ain't nobody world.
Speaker 4: That's a gospel song, taking you to heaven? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: and and lo and behold.
Speaker 7: After all the interviews we did talking to these people,
Speaker 7: they invited us back to church.
Speaker 4: We go back to church.
Speaker 7: The first song requested in the pool bit I'll take
Speaker 7: you there.
Speaker 4: You know what I said. You know you just don't
Speaker 4: know what to do to please people.
Speaker 2: It's true. That's why you gotta just speak your truth,
Speaker 2: sing your truth right and spread some love.
Speaker 4: Spread love, put out love, Yes, put it out there,
Speaker 4: and that's what you do. I'm gonna do it. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna keep on doing it. You are my favorite fall
Speaker 4: of love. You, my little sweetheart. I love you so much.
Speaker 4: Do you have one more song in you?
Speaker 2: Or can I play? Can I play you a song?
Speaker 2: And you chime in if you want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we'll end it. We can.
Speaker 2: Let's do it the album. Pops made the album uh
Speaker 2: that song friendship, Oh yes, and then Jeff and the
Speaker 2: crew they kind of fixed it up right and and
Speaker 2: recorded all recorded like you weren't happy with it, and it.
Speaker 4: Never got that's right.
Speaker 7: And tweety did all that for Pop's album. That was
Speaker 7: that's his last work, and I wanted it. I wanted
Speaker 7: to put it out there, but I wanted to put
Speaker 7: it out properly and write.
Speaker 4: And so he.
Speaker 2: Re recorded all the stuff that you weren't happy with, right. Yes,
Speaker 2: he took the tracks of Pops and you guys singing,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 4: Was so pleased.
Speaker 6: I come up in here to listen and tears just flowed.
Speaker 18: You know.
Speaker 6: My sister Vaughn and I we we came to check
Speaker 6: it out.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: J It's a beautiful recording and it's a great song.
Speaker 2: That's a pop song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's a good song. It's a really good song.
Speaker 4: Say watch my longtime friend, something's bothering You tell me
Speaker 4: what the problem is.
Speaker 6: I see what I can do.
Speaker 4: There's a times we disagree. We agree more that we don't.
Speaker 6: We won't always see I do lie.
Speaker 4: But we will more than we won't because we.
Speaker 17: Got our friendship, the kind of last life time.
Speaker 4: Through all the timeships.
Speaker 6: You know you're a friend of mine. We got our friendship, the.
Speaker 2: Kind of last life time, through all those hardships.
Speaker 6: You know you're a friend of mine.
Speaker 4: You want to sing, what oh.
Speaker 6: Talk to me, oh parle of mine? If you feel
Speaker 6: you can't go home, don't you sweat. It ain't over yet,
Speaker 6: this spawn with Shelly Strong. I've been awall. You are
Speaker 6: right now. You saw me through it all. I lean
Speaker 6: on you now you can lean on me. I bet
Speaker 6: I won't lady you fall because we got friendship kind
Speaker 6: of lasts a life time through all the hardship.
Speaker 4: You know you're a friend of mine because we got
Speaker 4: fast ship, the kind.
Speaker 6: Of lasts life time. Who are those harships? You know
Speaker 6: you're a friend of mine. If you're on the street,
Speaker 6: I'll take your hat.
Speaker 4: You're hungry, I'll give you food.
Speaker 2: God if it's money you need.
Speaker 6: I got some saved. If you're sick, I'll visit you.
Speaker 2: I've been with you all right now, you saw me
Speaker 2: through it all.
Speaker 4: I'll lean on you now.
Speaker 6: You can lean on me.
Speaker 17: I won't let you fall because we got friend ship,
Speaker 17: the kind of last live time.
Speaker 4: Through all hardships.
Speaker 6: You know you a friend of Miney, we got friend
Speaker 6: ship kind of last life time.
Speaker 9: As you know you're a friend of mine through all.
Speaker 6: The hard ships.
Speaker 4: You know you're a friend of.
Speaker 6: Mine, through all the hard shops.
Speaker 4: You know you're a friend of mine. I had a
Speaker 4: fight that came from Crime Girl. I love that song
Speaker 4: and I love you. Thanks for thanks for talking with me.
Speaker 7: I'm so happy. I'm so happy you invited me. I've
Speaker 7: never done one of these. What do you call it
Speaker 7: a podcast?
Speaker 4: Podcast?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm honored that you joined me. Thank you, Maavi.
Speaker 2: You are loved by all who know you. Ask for everything, always.
Speaker 5: Love it.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 14: Just playing alone, Thanks for listening to the show that
Speaker 14: was made a Staples incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a fun way.
Speaker 5: I just want her to call me and tell me
Speaker 5: everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 4: I believe her.
Speaker 2: We should just call her, Hey, can you tell me
Speaker 2: everything's gonna be okay?
Speaker 4: I'm sure she probably needs to hear it too.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's true, Yeah, it's true, she is not alone.
Speaker 2: In fact, let's let's wrap this up so we can
Speaker 2: go call her. How much thanks for listening to the show.
Speaker 2: Our show was recorded by Mark Greenberg at The Loft
Speaker 2: in Chicago, mixed by Jamie Landry and additional engineering by
Speaker 2: Greg Tobler. Produce by Me and Sarah Oda Sarah Oda
Speaker 2: and WA photography by Shervin Linez.
Speaker 4: Artwork by Eliza Fry. See you Later,