‘God can use you at any age,’ says musical matriarch

Annie & The Caldwells, a family ensemble from Mississippi creating vibey disco soul music, are releasing their first album this Spring - and they have a message.

“Each song gives a testimony,” said matriarch Annie Caldwell, who heads up the band, which includes her daughters Deborah and Anjessica, goddaughter Toni Rivers, and sons and husband on drums, bass, and guitar. “I hope and pray to God that it bless somebody else like it been blessing me.”

Can’t Lose My (Soul) is the culmination of decades of making music together as a family and performing in churches across the southern US. “It will resonate because trying to live right ain’t no overnight thing. It’s a process,” Anjessica explained. “Keep the faith and you’ll see a whole different change.”

Born with music in their DNA, Caldwell’s children started singing from five and six years old, prompting their mother to introduce them to gospel music “before the devil get ’em.”

Rather than just seeing gospel as a genre, Caldwell’s music is her ministry, with songs often coming together as she’s talking to the Lord. “My music isn’t just singing to be singing… You can feel what you’re singing about and who you’re talking to,” she explained.

Many of the songs on the new album recount Caldwell’s own, very personal, experiences and how she’s witnessed God working through them. “I know what God can do ’cause I’ve experienced it for myself,” she said. “So thats what the music is all about. It’s about the Lord and what He can do for you.”

Ahead of their album release, Annie & The Caldwells did their first European tour in February, selling out at Church of Sound in London. Now 67, Caldwell said she was just 17 when God told her He would take her all over the world to tell others about Him. “I’m living in that moment now,” she said. “The Lord’s still doing what He said He gonna do. God can use you at any age.”

And people are certainly hearing about God.

Anjessica recalled a concert the band played in Virginia, where an atheist in the crowd said the music had called her to reconsider. “I praise God – because it aint’ about us. Ain’t nothing we doing; it’s what God’s doing through us.”

Even the secular Guardian newspaper describes their debut album, now out, as “a gospel masterpiece to drag you out of despair” and gave it five stars out of five.