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| Billboard |
 Last year, Mavis Staples released a revelatory collection of protest songs ("We'll Never Turn Back") that, though such a thing was hardly needed, reaffirmed her vitality in the current music scene. "Hope at the Hideout" is her victory lap, a joyous house party that benefits from a wonderful alignment of the stars: It was recorded in her return to a cozy, sold-out blues house in Staples' Chicago hometown and released on Election Day. At 69, Staples' power-train voice is close to rugged perfection throughout, and she's wonderfully fired up. And while the studio versions of these tracks are driven by a singular purpose, their live cousins shimmer and shake. Nowhere is that clearer than on a lively and soulful "For What It's Worth," a soaring "This Little Light" and the singularly majestic "We Shall Not Be Moved." —Jeff Vrabel...full text |
| Pitchforkmedia |
| However tomorrow's presidential election turns out, Barack Obama's candidacy is itself a victory. That's what Mavis Staples-- a longtime social justice warrior who marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and soundtracked, with her Staples siblings and father Pops, the civil rights movement-- would likely tell you. Releasing a live album of freedom songs on this election day is a deliberate gesture, but maybe a more nuanced one than people might expect. Staples (like a lot of us), may fervently hope for an Obama win and would probably be the first to enumerate the items remaining on the civil-rights task list, but the gospel/R&B/pop legend has always favored King's peaceful progressive-Christian theology that privileges the "good news" over the agitating, even when good news is scant and there's plenty to agitate about. Sounding like a charismatic preacher, Staples frames her performance for the audience, "We've come here tonight to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration, and some positive vibrations! We want to leave you with enough to last you for maybe the next six months". The crowd that converged on Chicago's cozy, laid-back Hideout this past June are enthused, but polite (and probably a bit awestruck), as she launches with gusto into protest-era standard "Eyes on the Prize". For its well-mannered, highly expectant air, it could be an Obama rally....full text |
| Blogs.nzherald |
| Staples' last album We'll Never Turn Back was widely considered one of the best albums of 2007, and this woman who grew up with segregation has lived to see a black president heading for the White House. This album, recorded in her hometown of Chicago some months ago when Obama's presidency was still a hope rather than a reality, is how you would want to hear her: upfront of tough blues-rock band in a small club, and when she sings "keep your eyes on the prize, hold on" and Freedom Highway you know she is bringing a world of experience to the lyrics which actually mean something personal. She draws from We'll Never Turn Back for material (a deeply and meaningful For What It's Worth opens the set) and she speak-sings a moving section in Down in Mississippi (water fountains which have signs "for coloreds only") over a swamp-rock backdrop. She also delivers a gutsy soul-funk version of the traditional Wade in the Water and does the same for that old folky warhorse This Little Light of Mine which re-invents these songs....full text |
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