{"id":6826,"date":"2016-12-18T12:25:48","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T17:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6826"},"modified":"2016-12-18T12:25:48","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T17:25:48","slug":"staple-singers-the-virgin-mary-had-one-son-bw-there-was-a-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6826","title":{"rendered":"Staple Singers – The Virgin Mary Had One Son b\/w There Was a Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Staple Singers<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Listen\/Download – The Staple Singers – The Virgin Mary Had One Son <\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Listen\/Download – The Staple Singers – There Was a Star <\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Greetings all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought we\u2019d get our holiday festivities underway this year with a lovely two-sider from the mighty Staple Singers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally recorded at part of their 1962 LP \u2018The 25th Day of December\u2019, \u2018There Was a Star\u2019 and \u2018The Virgin Mary Had One Son\u2019 were also released as a 45 that same year.<\/p>\n

I have gone on in this space before about the pure, elemental power of the Staple Singers records, combining their group harmonies, Mavis\u2019s<\/strong> soaring, explosive voice, and Pops\u2019<\/strong> Delta-rooted guitar playing into a thing of pure beauty.<\/p>\n

\u2018There Was a Star\u2019, written by Pops, and William Westbrook<\/strong> (though the 45 lists a third composer with the last name of \u2018Rice\u2019 but I haven\u2019t been able to find out who that is, and most other sources only list the two writers), features a great lead by Mavis and call-and-response harmonies by Pops, Pervis<\/strong> and Cleotha<\/strong>. The backing is very spare, mainly Pops guitar, drums and a very judiciously applied organ popping in now and then.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Virgin Mary Had One Son\u2019 is a slow, almost mournful traditional song delivered with Mavis in the lead and group harmony over a bed of Pops vibrato guitar and drawn out organ notes. I haven\u2019t been able to find any information about the source of the song, but it was also covered around the same time by Bob Gibson and Joan Baez<\/strong> together, and by Baez solo.<\/p>\n

The 45 is a great microcosm of the earlier Staples sound, and like everything they ever recorded, a pure pleasure to listen to.<\/p>\n

So dig it, and I\u2019ll be back on Wednesday with something by Freddy King.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keep the faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

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_________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!<\/strong> The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock.<\/strong> They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).<\/strong> Click here to go to the ordering page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).<\/strong><\/p>\n

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Staple Singers Listen\/Download – The Staple Singers – The Virgin Mary Had One Son   Listen\/Download – The Staple Singers – There Was a Star   Greetings all. I thought we\u2019d get our holiday festivities underway this year with a lovely two-sider from the mighty Staple Singers. Originally recorded at part of their 1962 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43,79,14,82,12,18],"tags":[166,181,164],"class_list":["post-6826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicago-soul","category-christmas","category-funky16corners","category-gospel","category-soul","category-soul-45","tag-funky16corners","tag-gospel","tag-soul"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1M6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6849,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826\/revisions\/6849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}