Tell Heaven

Down across the railroad tracks, on a narrow road called Church Street in West Point, Mississippi, there’s a windowless brick building that’s been converted into a house of worship called The Message Center. One chilly January morning, the original members of a little-known gospel group from Aberdeen, Mississippi, called the Staples Jr. Singers gathered there to play some of their early songs for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Many of these songs, which they wrote when they were just teenagers, first appeared on their only full-length release in 1975, When Do We Get Paid, but none have been revisited—until now.