Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American 'rhythm and blues' and gospel singer, actress, and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers.  Mavis began her career with her family group in 1950, initially singing locally at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show.  In 1957, The Staple Singers took their music on the road. With Mavis' voice and Pops' songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from enormously popular gospel singers to become the most spectacular and influential spirituality-based group in America. By the mid-1960s The Staple Singers, inspired by Pops' close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., became the spiritual and musical voices of the civil rights movement. 

Her first solo album would not come until a 1969 self-titled release for the Stax label.  Mavis Staples has recorded with a wide variety of musicians, from her friend Bob Dylan (with whom she was nominated for a 2003 Grammy Award in the "Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals" category. She has provided vocals on current albums by Los Lobos and Dr. John, and she appears on tribute albums to such artists as Johnny Paycheck, Stephen Foster, and Bob Dylan.

On February 13, 2011, Mavis Staples won her first Grammy award in the category for Best Americana Album for "You Are Not Alone". In her acceptance speech, a shocked and crying Staples said "This has been a long time coming.  On May 7, 2011, Mavis was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Staples headlined on June 10, 2012, at Chicago's Annual Blues Festival in Grant Park.

On June 27, 2015, Staples performed on the Park Stage of Glastonbury Somerset UK. On October 31, 2015, Staples performed with Joan Osborne in Washington, D.C. at The George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium as part of their Solid Soul Tour.

In February 2016, Staples's album Livin' on a High Note was released. Produced by M. Ward, the album features songs written specifically for Staples by Nick Cave, Justin Vernon, tUnE-yArds, Neko Case, Aloe Blacc, and others. Discussing the album Staples said:

 

I've been singing my freedom songs and I wanted to stretch out and sing some songs that were new. I told the writers I was looking for some joyful songs. I want to leave something to lift people up; I'm so busy making people cry, not from sadness, but I'm always telling a part of history that brought us down and I'm trying to bring us back up. These songwriters gave me a challenge. They gave me that feeling of, 'Hey, I can hang! I can still do this!' There's a variety, and it makes me feel refreshed and brand new. Just like Benjamin Booker wrote on the opening track, 'I got friends and I got love around me, I got people, the people who love me.' I'm living on a high note, I'm above the clouds. I'm just so grateful. I must be the happiest old girl in the world. Yes, indeed.

In January 2017, Staples was featured as a guest vocalist on "I Give You Power", a single from Arcade Fire benefiting the American Civil Liberties Union. In February 2017, Staples appeared on NPR's Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me! in the "Not My Job" segment, answering questions about the rock band The Shaggs. In April 2017, "Let Me Out", a single from the fifth studio album by Gorillaz, Humanz, was released, featuring Staples and rapper Pusha T.

Staples's sixteenth album If All I Was Was Black was released on November 17, 2017. The record was again produced by Jeff Tweedy and contains all original songs cowritten by Mavis and Tweedy. Following the release, Staples toured with Bob Dylan. She also appeared on the 2017/18 Hootenanny. In 2018, she sang on Hozier's single "Nina Cried Power".

In May 2019, Staples celebrated her 80th birthday with a concert at the Apollo Theater, 63 years after first appearing at the theater as a teenager with her family band, the Staple Singers, in 1956. The show, which featured special guest artists, including David Byrne and Norah Jones, is one of a series of collaborative concerts she staged in May to commemorate her 80th birthday. She also performed at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival.

In June 2020, Staples collaborated with Run The Jewels on the track "Pulling the Pin" from their studio album RTJ4.

In 2022, Staples released Carry Me Home, a collaboration with Levon Helm, recorded at Helm's Midnight Ramble in 2011.

Staples was briefly married to Spencer Leak in 1964; they divorced when Staples would not end her music career to stay home. She has no children. In the 2015 documentary Mavis! she reveals that Bob Dylan once proposed to her, and she turned him down.

During her career, Staples has appeared in many films and television shows, including The Last Waltz, Graffiti Bridge, Wattstax, New York Undercover, Soul Train, Soul to Soul, The Psychiatrist, and The Cosby Show.

(Mavis Staples at 6th Annual Poconos Blues Festival 1997)