" 'We've come tonight to bring you some joy, some happiness, inspiration and some positive vibrations!' Mavis Staples tells the audience at Chicago's Hideout club, a promise she stylishly fulfills in a set drawn predominantly from last year's Ry Cooder produced We'll Never Turn Back album of civil rights anthems and blues. There's not a dull moment in earshot,
whether she's personalising JB Lenoir's 'Down In Mississippi' with her own recollections of drinking fountain apartheid, engaging in a call and response workout with the audience on 'Wade In The Water', or leading them in sing-a-longs of 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' and the Staples Singers hit 'I'll take You There'. Her voice's larygitic burr is extraordinarily potent for a 69 year old, and there's a frisson of hope discernible in the delivery of a song like 'Eyes On The Prize', a civil rights rallying cry lent fresh pertinence by Barack Obama's campaign for the US presidency. And major kudos to the guitarist Rick Holmstrom, who turns in a virtuoso performance completely concealing the sparseness of the rest of the line-up. 5 Stars."

-- The Independent (London, UK newspaper) September 11, 2008

To view more, please visit: www.rickholmstrom.com and hit BLOG.