Staples Jr. Singers - Tell Heaven - New 12"

This limited 12" EP from the Staples Jr. Singers was recently featured in an important exhibition at the gallery GRAY (Chicago/New York). The show, Citing Black Geographies, brought together artists examining notions of “Black space”—the topographies that portend to Black cultural experience. The music of the Staples Jr. Singers played around the clock in the gallery, alongside the work of Theaster Gates, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others.

This was recorded in January 2022 in West Point, MS, when Edward, R.C., and Annie of the original Staples Jr. Singers gathered with a few younger family members at a house of worship to perform some of their early songs—including from 1975’s When Do We Get Paid—for the first time in 50 years.

With GRAY, the Staples Jr. Singers made a 12-inch EP out of that performance—and now we’ve made a limited version, too, because this music is too significant in the history of this family not to share it with you.

We’re calling it Tell Heaven. If you have a chance, we hope you’ll listen to it.

Side A is a 20-minute song, "When Do We Get Paid (in Full)," which somehow is so long that we couldn't even upload it to Bandcamp for you to hear it. But it’s on the vinyl.