Annie & The Caldwells

Annie Earl Caldwell (voice), Deborah Caldwell Moore (voice), Anjessica Caldwell (voice), Toni Rivers (voice), Willie Joe Caldwell Sr. (guitar), Willie Caldwell Jr. (bass), Abel Aquirius (drums) "My family is my band", for Annie Caldwell this phrase is not a metaphor, her band and her family are one and the same, their way of life. From West Point, Mississippi, this family clan plays a powerful, fiery and deeply spiritual soul, where there is also gospel and funk, all impregnated with street, life, sweat, suffering and love... in short, truth. At the age of 16, Annie was already singing with her brothers in The Staples Jr. Singers, a teenage group that released a single album in the 1970s. It was during a performance at a church in West Point when a guitarist in the audience asked, "Who's that? That musician was Willie Joe Caldwell, whom Annie would eventually marry and with whom she would found the group. While raising their children, Annie opened Caldwell Fashions, a shop on West Point's Main Street that from the 1980s became the go-to place for women dressing up for Church Of God In Christ conventions and anniversaries. Everything changed when her eldest daughter was invited to sing in a school competition... and she chose to sing the blues, or, to put it another way, music that didn't speak of the gospel. "We thought if we didn't do something, the devil was going to take her away," Annie recalls. Thus the family band was born, a way to protect their daughters and, at the same time, channel the music they loved most. Two decades later, the line-up remains much the same. Their songs speak of what has happened to them: birth, illness, loss, resilience. Real life turned into collective catharsis on stage, from a female and intergenerational perspective. Their third and latest album, Can't Lose My (Soul) (2025), is the result of twenty years on the road. It was recorded in their village, in a church near their home. Everything was recorded live, together, as a family, seeking to preserve the emotion, rawness and authenticity of each song. The Caldwells are still down to earth: they all have day jobs, Annie's shop is still open and their music is born exactly where they come from. A sound where faith, disco, soul and real life go hand in hand without artifice. Gospel for dancing, for healing and for believing.