Hope Live at the Hideout
Artist: Mavis Staples
Label: Anti-
Time: 12 Tracks + spoken intro track / 67 mins
 
Like a human cannonball catapulted from the huge barrel of a cannon, Mavis Staples begins this disc with a sense of purpose. The opening Buffalo Springfield piece “For What it’s Worth” contains the lines “There’s a man with a gun over there telling me I’ve got to beware” and “Paranoia strikes deep ... it starts when you’re afraid”  as it describes the unrest and corruption of the 1960s. Casually heard, the common pop song carries all the weight of the fleeting summer of love, but in this context it is a wake up cry and declaration of intent to resolve the injustice that the black community has experienced for so long in America. 
 
In her welcoming lines, Staples declares “We’ve come tonight to bring some joy, happiness, inspiration and some positive vibrations. We want to leave you with enough to last maybe six months” – a thinly veiled reference to her hopes for Barack Obama to be elected later in the year. Just to underline the point, the disc was released on Election Day.
 
Featuring tracks from her 2007 civil rights songs album, this intimate and defiant performance at a theatre that holds fewer than 200 people in her home town was like the final sprint in a marathon, and had only one focus – hence the inclusion of the song “(Keep Your) Eyes on the Prize.” For this 69-year-old, the civil rights struggle has been all her life. A very gritty “Down in Mississippi” and the no-holds-barred “Why am I Treated So Bad?” describe the pain that blacks lived in through last century. She recounts family stories and her own experience of segregation, such as when her grandmother told her she couldn’t drink from the same water fountain as whites, according to a nearby sign. There’s still triumph and joy in her voice as she remembers “Dr King got those signs taken down!”
 
There is hope and perseverance written though the show, which is testament to the power of the gospel to keep the struggle non-violent and to wait with patience. A storming “Wade in the Water” shows the hope that carried them through, as does a transfixing version of the sometime Sunday school chorus “This Little Light,” which is subverted, as Glenn Kaiser showed elsewhere, back to an anthem of faith-based resolution for activists making a stand, its deep blues edge and gospel backing reflecting the long haul that was needed. As she sings, “I’m gonna walk in the master’s name. Everything I do seems to be in vain. You may be blind, you may be lame, but walk on out in the Master’s name” 
 
The spirit of her father, Pops Staples, fills the room right from the first resonant tremolo notes that guitarist Rick Holmstrom picks. The old man’s style made songs like “The Last Time” his own and influenced bands like The Rolling Stones. With a muted and dutiful rhythm section and a trio of backing singers who shade the music in pastel tones, it is left to Holmstrom to bring presence to the stage to match Mavis Staples. This may just be an audio record, but there is enough life in his playing here to screen a video in the mind of some interaction with Staples, who mixes the visceral gospel power of Candi Staton at her best with the deep growl of Tina Turner.
 
Although the encore includes the first song that the Staples Singers sang together (“Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”) and their major hit (“I’ll Take You There”), most of the set comes from her recent We’ll Never Turn Back, ending with such resolute anthems as “March Up Freedom’s Highway” and “We Shall Not Be Moved”. It seems that only the evening’s original climax, “Turn Me Around” is not on this disc.
 
Staples is remarkably fired up in this performance. She may be a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, have performed for presidents, been alongside Dr. Martin Luther King in the civil rights struggle and had a fair share of chart-topping singles, but you have to wonder how many of these she would have swapped to see a black president. This record of that night feels precious for both its historical sense and for reminding the world of the role of gospel music at its best.
 
Derek Walker