When the Staples Jr. Singers, the little-known family band from Aberdeen, Mississippi originally released their first and only full-length album, 1975’s When Do We Get Paid (Luaka Bop, 2022), they made a handful of copies themselves, which they sold at talent shows and to their neighbors on their front lawn. One of the most striking features of this record was the cover—prayers hands set against a gleaming, divine gold. We never saw a real album in the flesh when we made our version, and when we got the scans of the cover, the gold had washed out to white. So now, for the first time since its original release When Do We Get Paid will once more have a gold cover. Who are the Staples Jr. Singers, and why do they share a name with that other gospel group you might have heard of, the ones who famously crossed over? The musical family behind the Jr. Singers, the Browns, were a part of a vanguard of gospel soul artists in the 1970s who broke from tradition to testify with the groove. Excited audiences would flock to them after shows, telling them, “Y’all sound like the Staple Singers, y’all should call yourselves the little Staple Jr. Singers!” And so they did. When they wrote these songs — all of them stone cold soul — they were teenagers, and they had one question on their minds: When Do We Get Paid? You don’t have to take our word for how great this record is. Take the Guardian’s instead, which calls it “powerful.” Or the Times’ (★★★★), which calls it “full of feeling,” or Popmatters’ (9/10) which says it’s “a recording of fragile beauty and turbulent groove.” Amen.
