Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples is one of the most important American singers of the last century, or, really, ever—and, in the second half of her 80s, she somehow seems to be more resonant and powerful than ever. Staples was born in Chicago just before the United States entered World War II, her parents both having left the Mississippi Delta amid the Great Migration. She joined the family band before she was a teenager and essentially hit the road the moment she turned 18, there as The Staple Singers transformed from a stirring gospel group to the band who supplied the Civil Rights Movement not with its mere score but with real musical inspiration. Turning songs by white singer-songwriters into anthems for a long-overdue American moment, The Staple Singers were on the front lines of social change, battle positions they maintained even after being falsely arrested in Memphis simply for being Black.

Mavis began her solo career just before the ’70s began. Despite several strong albums, including 1970’s Only for the Lonely, her solo career was sporadic and uneven for decades, her collaborations with longtime champion Prince notwithstanding. But two decades ago, she signed a deal with ANTI-, jumpstarting a career renaissance to rival the one of the folk singer who often proposed to her long ago, Bob Dylan. She has cut albums with Ry Cooder, Ben Harper, and Jeff Tweedy, showcases of her endurance amid national and personal struggles and the wisdom she has gained therein. Last year, she achieved a new career apex with Sad and Beautiful World, where boosters from Derek Trucks and MJ Lenderman to Katie Crutchfield and Buddy Guy join her for songs by the likes of Sparklehorse, Gillian Welch, and Tom Waits. Worn and strengthened by time, effort, and the progress it helped render, her voice is an inexhaustible well, a product and vector of resilience, a national treasure.