Pitchfork

At age 66, Mavis Staples still has it. She was recording for Stax with the Staple Singers during the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s, and the performances on We'll Never Turn Back-- her latest album, containing songs from the era-- burn with the vehement fire that fueled the movement.

Staples' background in gospel leaps out of the speakers. "On My Way" has a quiet, confident intensity, her gravelly voice essentially dueting with Ry Cooder's dry, soulful acoustic guitar accompaniment. It's all in the way she says it: "I'm on my way/ And I won't turn back." It's the sound of someone who has taken the beating and kept on walking tall, and its power stems from its simplicity and its mantra-like repetition. You sing this enough and you'll begin to believe it.

"Eyes on the Prize"-- my God, what an arrangement. Cooder and the band make it funky in a dirt-road way. You can feel the sweat of marchers in that slide guitar, and Jim Keltner, the consummate studio pro, sounds like he's channeling something a lot deeper than a paycheck. The video is perhaps predictable, a stream of familiar footage from the era-- Dr. King on the Mall, lunch counter protests, flags and signs waving, mob brutality, Klan rallies, and those awful shots of the fire hoses turned on full bore. Still, it's a reminder of what this country went through simply in an effort to live up to its own founding principles in an era when complacency seems to be the leading American emotion.