Back in the 1970s, around five years after they started performing, a group of young siblings from Aberdeen, Mississippi, known as the Staples Jr Singers despite being unrelated to the older and more famous Staples family, released their first album, When Do We Get Paid. The Brown siblings — there were ten of them, all of whom spent time in the group — toured the Bible Belt at weekends, playing their own brand of gospel music. They kept on touring after the album’s release, but they took a break from recording — a fifty-year break, until two evenings in October 2023 when the group recorded its second album, Searching, in a small church in West Point, Mississippi, with engineer Albert DiFiore and producer Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab.
Three of the Browns are still alive and performing: brothers Edward and R.C. and sister Annie Brown Caldwell. The group has taken on a new lease of life since the 2022 re-issue of their debut record, undertaking their first trips outside the USA including tours of Europe: a summer 2024 tour will include dates in Manchester and London. The family connections extend to the backing musicians: Edward’s son Troy is on backing vocals, R.C. also plays guitar, his son Gary plays bass guitar and his grandson Jaylin plays drums (the album sleeve credits Maria Brown, Troy’s wife, for covering Jaylin’s shift at McDonalds when one of the recording sessions overran). The band is augmented by guitarists Mickey Smart and Steve Daly, vibes player Parker James and Hammond organist Gerald Jenkins: every musician displays a sympathetic, stylish and unshowy technique, an excellent complement to Annie, Edward and R.C.’s vocals.
Annie, the youngest of the three siblings, takes the lead vocal on “Living in this World Alone,” crafting a strong, soulful, vocal over a tight, propulsive backing. Edward and R.C. sing lead on the remaining songs. While Annie retains the vocal power of much younger singers, her brothers’ voices show signs of age and hard working lives: the trade-off, in both of them, is performances full of maturity, worldly wisdom and skilled communication. All three tell their often downbeat stories in a way that’s replete with optimism and hope even as they foresee the day when, as R.C. puts it, “One of these mornings, and it won’t be long, you’re gonna look for me, I’ll be going on home …” “Walk Around Heaven” is R.C.’s highlight. He sings confidently of how, one day, “I don’t know how soon, there’ll be a man standing on the moon,” while foreseeing an even more momentous journey for himself, when he’s “gonna walk around Heaven.” The most familiar song on the album is probably “You Got To Believe,” thanks to its similarity to a more secular song by the Pointer Sisters titled “You Gotta Believe” (that song was credited to Norman Whitfield, Searching doesn’t give writing credits for any of the songs, suggesting that “Traditional” has done a lot of the composing). Edward sings lead as the ensemble out-grooves the Pointers without seeming to break sweat.
As for the band’s name, it arose from audience responses back in the day, when the Brown siblings were still barely in their teens. Despite their youth, fans heard in their performances echoes of the Staples Singers and told them “You should call yourselves the Staples Jr Singers.” The name stuck, creating some confusion but giving the Browns a comparison to be proud of. On the basis of the beautiful music on Searching the comparison is well-made — and Searching is an early contender for Album of the Year.
LINK: Bandcamp
