Pages tagged “mavis staples”

Click above to listen to the 2008-2009 artist sampler from ANTI. The album features songs from DeVotchKa, Man Man, Xavier Rudd, Nick Cave and many more.

Related Links:
ANTI Official Site

It's not like it was really a question who Mavis Staples was pulling for in the election. And once it actually happened, releasing the former Staple Singers' Live: Hope at the Hideout the day of seemed liked it had been an awfully well-conceived idea.

A few years ago I picked up the phone and dialed Mavis Staples. I was writing an article about her for Paste, and she had graciously agreed to answer my questions.

I'm not sure that I had any expectations. I knew her music, or some of it, at any rate. There were more than 50 years of it to take in. I knew her history. And I knew her new album. "Okay," I said to myself, "just sit down and have a nice, friendly chat with a member of the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame who used to hang out with Dr. Martin Luther King, and who was the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. No pressure, dude."

She might be most famous for fronting family band The Staple Singers, a group often credited with providing a spiritual soundtrack to the civil rights movement, but Mavis Staples has been releasing solo work with the same soulful ferocity since the late '60s. And it's about time you noticed.

As previously reported, gospel icon Mavis Staples will make her Anti- Records debut on April 24 with the surprisingly incendiary We’ll Never Turn Back. On the heels of this much-anticipated release comes an equally historic two-night stand at Harlem’s renowned Apollo Theater on May 14 and 15.

Nearly 50 years after first taking the storied stage with the Staple Singers, Mavis will again grace the Harlem venue. For the aforementioned two nights only, the original Freedom Singers, drummer Jim Keltner , bassist Mike Elizando and producer/guitarist Ry Cooder, all of whom play on the new record, will back Staples as she performs songs from We’ll Never Turn Back.

Related links:
Mavis Staples’ homepage
Anti- Records’ homepage
Mavis Staples on MySpace
Apollo Theater’s box office

Gospel legend Mavis Staples just completed work on the most controversial album of her career, titled We'll Never Turn Back. Marking her debut for Anti- Records, this raw and intensely personal collection combines contemporized versions of the freedom songs made famous during the Civil Rights Movement with a number of originals penned by Staples herself.

Slated for an April 24 release, We'll Never Turn Back was produced by master guitarist Ry Cooder, whose influence extends well outside the control booth. Several of the songs, including the title track, were co-written by Staples and Cooder, and she sings one of his originals on "I'll Be Rested." With the help of his son Joaquin, many of the original Freedom Singers and South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cooder is also responsible for the rootsy soundscapes behind Mavis' soulful and heartfelt vocals.

We’ll Never Turn Back tracklist:

1. Down In Mississippi
2. Eyes On The Prize
3. We Shall Not Be Moved
4. In The Mississippi River
5. On My Way
6. This Little Light
7. 99 And A Half
8. My Own Eyes
9. Turn Me Around
10. We'll Never Turn Back
11. I'll Be Rested
12. Jesus Is On The Main Line

For more information about We’ll Never Turn Back , visit Mavis Staples’ official website or Anti- Records.

We all needed more music like the title track to Have a Little Faith this year. Born out of personal tragedy, the album transcends our struggles, offering hope and healing. And the voice—first heard back in the 1950s when Mavis was a pre-teen with The Staple Singers—still rings strong and passionate. She uses it to inspire anyone with ears to hear.

Mavis Staples is singing to me over the phone, and I’m shaking my head, thinking I must be dreaming. It’s not every day that a legendary voice gives you an impromptu private concert. “Pops would do a lot of call-and-response songs, you know, and he would start out like this … (sings Pops’ line) … and then we children would come in behind him like this … (sings her line). And we did all right with that approach.”

Decent enough. As in membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, performances for several presidents, a vital role in the Civil Rights movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, a few #1 hit singles, recent guest appearances with Bob Dylan, Dr. John and Los Lobos, and 50 years of superb gospel recordings. Yeah, you’ve done OK, Mavis.

Staples’ new album, Have a Little Faith, her first for legendary Chicago blues label Alligator Records, continues that long tradition of gospel excellence. Full of the same soul- and rump-shaking bliss of classic gospel/funk hybrids like “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” Have a Little Faith’s 12 songs conjure potent memories of the great Atlantic/Stax Staple Singers hits from the early ’70s. The common denominator, of course, is Mavis Staples’ remarkably rich contralto, her command of phrasing and timbre that can move from the softest, sweetest purr to a throaty roar within seconds. It’s one of our national treasures, and it’s fully displayed on Have a Little Faith.

“I’m not trying to do anything fancy,” Mavis says. “Pops told me a long time ago, ‘You don’t need no gimmicks to sing God’s music. What comes from the heart reaches the heart.’ I believe what I sing, and I want to reach peoples’ hearts. I’m not going to abuse the blessing I’ve been given.” There’s little chance of that given the powerhouse performances and straightforward gospel messages of the songs. “Step Into the Light” and “I Wanna Thank You” are joyous affirmations of faith, while “God is Not Sleeping” is a quiet, pensive reminder of the love and care of God in the midst of personal turbulence. One gets the impression that Mavis sings the song to remind herself of some eternal truths as much as she sings it for us.

The singer who first rose to prominence half a century ago on the strength of the gospel single “Uncloudy Day” has recently experienced some unexpectedly dark clouds, and the new millennium has been far from kind to Mavis and the extended Staples family. Patriarch Roebuck “Pops” Staples passed away in 2000. Always a model of gentility, gentleness and moral strength, Pops is missed for far more than his undeniably great musical contributions. “He was my father,” Mavis says simply, but there is a world of grief that lies just beneath the surface. Mavis’ sister Cleotha was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2001. And, incredibly, Mavis herself was without a record label for several years, her work deemed too “old school” for modern audiences. Those trials are reflected in the choice of material on Have a Little Faith, from the chilling arrangement of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” to the cautionary “There’s a Devil on the Loose” and the 9/11-inspired “In Times Like These.”

Through it all, Staples remains refreshingly upbeat and humble. “I’m still alive,” she says, laughing. “I’m 64 years old, but I still feel like a little girl. I’m a singer, and I’m happiest when I’m singing. It’s what I do, and it’s my gift. So anytime someone asks me to sing, I figure this is my chance to glorify God. [Alligator Records founder and CEO] Bruce Iglauer left the nicest message for me on my answering machine when I was shopping for a new record label. I saved it and replayed it for days afterwards. I’m thrilled to be a part of his company. Blues and gospel have always been first cousins, and Alligator has been as supportive and gracious to me as you could imagine. So I’m very hopeful about the future.”

And that hope extends beyond even the grave itself. “I had to include ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ on the album,” she says. “You know that song. We’ve recorded it before, on Staple Singers albums. That was the first song Pops taught us children. I was maybe six or seven years old. And we literally sat in a circle, and Pops taught us all our parts. Right now the circle is broken. Pops died in December of 2000. My sister Cleo doesn’t know who I am sometimes. But that’s a song about heaven, you know? And the circle will be unbroken again.”

It’s a wish and a prayer that the most hardened atheist would not deny. In the meantime, that heavenly voice continues to witness to the greatness of God and the incomparable hope of new life. It’s the family way.