sounds of orchestras playing Mozart or choirs singing Bach. I know in my heart that the Staple Singers' music will infiltrate every micrometer of Heaven. This is powerful stuff. Every single word that Mavis sings, every thought expressed in these songs, is still absolutely relevant to our times, as relevant as they were in the 70's. People still can't get along. The races are still fighting with each other. There ain't enough love in the world. This world would be so much better if we would all work together for the good of each other. Those messages have not dated. And those are the messages that the Staple Singers give. A lot of people say those messages are corny in these days of Nine Inch Nails and the desperate empty mechanical clamor that is most of the music of our time. The Staple Singers' music puts the lie to all that, it makes post-modern cynicism and mean-spiritedness seem weak and irrelevant. But not only is this deeply spiritual music on a level that few artists ever reach; it is also a deeply funky music, with roots in the Delta fingerpicking bluesmen that Pops Staples learned his craft from and the burning gospel choirs of Mississippi churches where the Staples learned their art. Ray Charles took church music and made it funky; the Staples took funky music and put it back in the church. Christianity has lost so much by divorcing the mind from the body, the heart from the spirit,