The Staple Singers, “Long Walk to D.C.”
Single released August 1968
From the album Soul Folk in Action

The Staple Singers were one of the biggest acts on Stax, but you couldn’t predict such success from their first single. Homer Bank’s protest march “Long Walk to D.C.” failed to chart when it was released in August ‘68 along with their first Stax album Soul Folk in Action.

The Staple Singers came to Stax after being dropped by Epic. Epic and the group sought to broaden their traditional gospel/religious repertoire with contemporary secular protest music but when this was not met with an increase in audience or sales, the label bailed out. Stax executive Al Bell had known the group since the 1950s, when he was playing their records on his own gospel radio show in Arkansas, and signed them almost immediately thereafter.

These initial Stax sessions teamed Mavis, Cleotha, Pervis and Pops with the MGs less Booker - Al Jackson Jr. and Duck Dunn in the rhythm section with guitarist Steve Cropper, who also produced - with Marvell Thomas on keyboards plus Joe Arnold, Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love as the Memphis Horns. After the introduction from Pops’ phased electric gospel-blues guitar, Mavis commands this basic blues two-step with a voice that sounds both threatening and pleading. The lyrics speak of the familiar civil rights march to Washington; the music speaks of such sources as Aretha’s “Chain of Fools” (in Pops’ guitar intro) and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The lyrics and music together speak of the historic time and circumstance of the southeastern US in 1968.

In the companion booklet to The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Volume 2, Mavis recalls: “The songwriters at Stax knew we were doing protest songs. We had made a transition back there in the ’60s with Dr. King. We visited Dr. King’s church in Montgomery before the movement actually got started. When we heard Dr. King preach, we went back to the motel and had a meeting. Pops says, ‘Now if he can preach this, we can sing it. That could be our way of helping toward this movement.’”

“All those guys were writing what we actually wanted them to write. Pops would tell them to just read the headlines and whatever they saw in the morning paper that needed to be heard or known about, write us a song from that.”

You listen to “Long Walk to D.C.” and think it sounds like it was recorded a long time ago, but then you listen to the lyrics through the passion in their voices and realize how timeless this song really was or at least these sentiments were. Almost precisely four decades later, we’re still protesting against the stupidity of poverty, we’re still protesting against the stupidity of war, and poverty and war sure don’t seem to be leaving us any time soon. Sure feels like it’s still a mighty “Long Walk to D.C.” sometimes…

Thankfully Soul Folk in Action remains in print; “Long Walk to D.C.” is also available on several Staple Singers and Stax anthologies.

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