Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back

The artist who Prince considers "the epitome of soul" will be 67 this year, but her work is not done. To go by her website, the former mainstay of the Staple Singers is a nostalgia act - "available for bookings in two separate formats" - but this record offers a different picture. Returning to her protest-singing roots, she has made an album of songs associated with the 1960s civil-rights movement. "It's 2007, and there are still so many problems in the world," she writes of why she's revisiting songs such as 99 and ½ and Eyes On the Prize. Accompanied by the Freedom Singers, Staples is magnificent - personifying weary dignity on We Shall Not Be Moved, and light-footed sweetness on Down in Mississippi. Her voice is in tatters by the closing Jesus Is On the Mainline, and the memory lingers long after those ragged final notes.