Description
Peace to the Neighborhood is the sophomore solo album by the American Gospel/R&B singer and songwriter Pops Staples of the Staple Singers fame, released on PointBlank in 1992 (Virgin Records’ specialty imprint label founded primarily for blues and soul releases).
Imagine Pops Staples as your grandfather. Life has wrung him through the wringer with his faith and an easy nonchalance in tact. You listened back when he told you to «Respect Yourself», and now he’s picked up his guitar, invited some friends over with the intent to lay back with some blues jamming.
Such could be the scenario with the soul/gospel veteran’s second solo offering. Friends like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and daughters Mavis, Yvonne and Cleotha (thus reuniting the Staple Singers for the first time since 1986) assist Staples in connecting his blues heritage with the gospel and message music that brought him to pop/R&B heights a couple decades back.
Bluest is a cover of the trad «Down in Mississippi», where Ry Cooder adds slide guitar moans to the tale of southern oppression. Most ominous is «Miss Cocaine»’s foreboding bassline underscoring Staples’ recitation, which sounds like it borrows from the same anonymous script as Michael Peace’s «They Call Me Crack».
For most of his broader commentary, he borrows from more definite cover sources, like Los Lobos for the title cut and Browne’s «World in Motion». His own «America» nudges the individual citizen to make a turn toward God in a more modern blues context, horns stabbing through Pop’s friendly vocal fog.
The last three tunes are the gospel gems of the jewelbox. Mavis claims the mic for a re-recording of the Singers’ «Pray on My Child», and her dad gets that ’70s soul blues feeling on «Pray», ending up deep in the delta on the ending «I Shall Not Be Moved».
With recently revived interest in gospel blues legends like Rev. Gary Davis and Willie McTell, and Mavis’s mainstream success with Prince and BeBe and CeCe Winans, Pops could not be in better place to capitalize on his timeless plaints of sorrow and truth. [Jamie Lee Rake, CCM, July 1992]
As if you hadn’t noticed, we Christians can be really silly-billys! We sometimes hear competent Christian talent that might get a booking in a room over a pub in the real world and go totally over the top with extrav-agent use of flowery adjectives. Yet the church can ignore Christians who really do have exceptional musical talent (particularly if they’re black) while the world goes gaga with praise. Our hipper readers will know Pop Staples is the Christian singer/guitarist best remembered as head of the Staple Singers, whose gospel music tracks remain virtually unmatched for raw, throbbing power. Though now in his seventies, Pops retains his ability to pump a song up to exploding point. One this album, which has received rave reviews in the mass media, the emphasis is on “message” songs rather than strict gospel. Produced by Ry Cooder, whose vicious acoustic slide guitar weaves its usual magic while that voice is pure mississippi magic. Wizz-kids like Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, some Staple Singers, Jim Keltner, and Cooder’s usual backing vocalists create a shimmering brew of blues, soul and gospel sounds guaranteed to give goose-bumps. Pops leads the charge with an authority befitting an authentic giant of the music world. A magnificent album and that’s no overblown hype. If Pops ever starts a Christian ministry he should call it Sarah Ministries (our motto: old but still productive). [Tony May, Cross Rhythms, October 1992]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/peace-to-the-neighborhood/724204256)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “World In Motion”
A2. “Love Is A Precious Thing”
A3. “America”
A4. “Down In Mississippi”
A5. “This May Be The Last Time”
Side Two
B1. “(Peace To) The Neighborhood”
B2. “Miss Cocaine”
B3. “Pray On My Child”
B4. “Pray”
B5. “I Shall Not Be Moved”
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette, 12-inch vinyl LP, and CD by PointBlank.
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