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Five Star Fridays: Civil Rights Edition
Friday, July 20th, 2007I’m feeling a little overwhelmed after my trip to Louisiana. I don’t want to scoop my own story, so I’m afraid I can’t provide a lot of detail right now. But it’s a pretty amazing and hard-to-fathom story involving race, injustice, and the drug war (aren’t they all?).
So this week’s five-star tunes are liberty-themed:
I’ve written it here before: This is the best protest song of the aughts. At least so far. And there’s now a video…
Nobody sang with the acid Nina could when she was pissed. The first time I went down to Mississippi to report on the Cory Maye case, this song happened to pop up on my iPod on the plane ride over. No kidding. Okay, so I was listening for more than hour. Still, had to be about a 300-1 shot. The version below is definitely not her best performance of the song.
I prefer Sam Cooke’s version to Otis Redding’s.
Lots of people have done this one, including Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ray Charles. But this is by far my favorite, because, as you’ve probably noticed if you’ve read this site for any length of time, I adore Solomon Burke, and I’m a huge fan of BBA. I couldn’t find this song online, but given that I’ve been imploring you for years now to buy Burke’s Don’t Give Up on Me, you should already own it, right?
These are both off Staples’ incredible new CD “We’ll Never Turn Back,” produced by the legendary Ry Cooder. It is a dark, haunting, historical, moving collection of standards, covers, and original songs, all with a civil rights theme. “We Shall Not Be Moved” is an old civil rights staple. “I’ll Be Rested” is a chilling roll call of civil rights martyrs, set to Staples and a gospel backing singing the refrain, “I’ll be rested/when the roll is called.”
By the way, XM has been rebroadcasting the concert Staples and Cooder gave together at Bonnaroo this year. If you can catch it, do. It’s terrific.
Here’s video from another cut off the same album, “Eyes on the Prize.”
Heartbreaking. The most devastating protest song, ever.
Incidentally, the horrible photo that inspired the song was, unfortunately, snapped in Indiana. My college history professor wrote a very good book about the story behind it.
