Mavis Staples
Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, OR.
July 7, 2007

Recorded from KBOO FM again this year. KBOO is an all volunteer radio station that has been broadcasting this festival for 20 years. There will be some inherrent reception problems and some drops in the music from time to time, but I have tried to "fix" all where possible.

Recorded from FM > Sharp MD > HD > Wave Editor > FLAC > you

Enjoy the tunes, twofthrs

"It's flat-out one of the best collections of songs Staples has ever made, a small-combo gospel album that rocks and rolls. She sounds more fiery and inspired than ever."
-Chicago Tribune

"Staples calls it like it is, not just how it was, from Katrina to Kabul. By the third track, you'll be shouting along." -downbeat

In the late 1960s Mavis Staples and the Staples Singers, hitting the top of the charts with "Respect Yourself," and "I'll Take You There," were the pied pipers of the Civil Rights Movement. Forty years later Mavis' critically-acclaimed, Ry Cooder -produced release, We'll Never Turn Back , revisits the themes of peace and perseverance that she learned firsthand from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Citing the Katrina disaster and the unravelling Mideast, she says "we need to hear these messages now more than ever."

The soul and gospel legend returns to Waterfront Park with a new band that fuses a three-voice backing choir to a roots-rock power trio featuring the searing guitarist Rick Holmstrom and award-winning songwriter / bassist Jeff Turmes. Holmstrom's band appears on the Saturday afternoon DME Crescent City Celebration cruise as well as closing the Miller Blues Stage that evening with Mavis Staples.

Mavis Staples possesses one of the most recognizable and treasured voices in contemporary music. From her early days sharing lead vocals with her groundbreaking family gospel group, The Staple Singers, to her storied solo recordings, Mavis Staples is an inspirational force in modern popular culture and music. A 40-year veteran of the music scene, a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, and included on VH1's list of 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Rolll, Staples (with The Staple Singers and on her own) blazed a rhythm & blues trail while never relinquishing her gospel roots, influencing artists from Bob Dylan to Prince, who dubbed her “the epitome of soul.”

Her stunning career included appearances alongside everyone from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Bill Cosby to Presidents Kennedy, Carter and Clinton to musicians Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Santana and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and recording sessions with Bob Dylan, Los Lobos, Aretha Franklin and many others.

Have a Little Faith, her 2004 release on Alligator, and her first release in over a decade, helped Mavis sweep the WC Handy Awards, the blues world's Grammy, winning Soul-Blues Artist of the Year, Soul Blues Album, Blues Album, and it's title track winning Blues Song.

Set List
1. down in mississippi
2. keep your eyes on the prize
3. for what it's worth
4. this little light of mine
5. jesus is on the main line
6. the weight (interference at start)
7. why (am i treated so bad)
8. march ??
9. respect yourself
10. will the circle be unbroken
11. on my way