![]() Like anyone of a certain age, she has a quarry of stories she mines to explain the shape of her life. We were having lunch at a restaurant downstairs from her apartment, and Staples was saying that even now she dreams about her family. “Ghosts,” as Staples put it to me one day. She’s left with memories of a bygone world: back-yard barbecues at the Staples place, with Redd Foxx, Aretha Franklin, and Mahalia Jackson piling their plates with ribs and creamed corn starlit rides in the family Cadillac, touring the gospel capitals of the Deep South singing “Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)” at rallies before Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered an oration. But now the other members of Mavis Staples’s family-her father, Roebuck her mother, Oceola her brother, Pervis her sisters, Cleotha, Cynthia, and Yvonne-are gone. Compared with the Jacksons, the Turners, or the Beach Boys, the Staple Singers is a story free of dark drama. For decades, she performed in the cocoon of a family that was remarkably warm, loving, and coöperative. ![]() The passage of time has relentlessly winnowed the comforts of her old life. Mostly our old stuff, the songs we started singing when I was a kid: ‘Didn’t It Rain,’ ‘Help Me Jesus.’ ” For company, she’d pick up her phone and check in with “the Twitter people.” The empty days went on and on. She didn’t go out, and she let no one in. She watched cable news and saw the ravaging effect that Covid-19 was having on folks her age. For two years, during the worst of the pandemic, Staples stayed home in Chicago-she lives in a modern high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan-and was, like just about everyone else in the music business, unable to perform or record. I hope I have that energy when I’m her age, but the truth is I don’t even have it now.”Īnd yet life has its way of wearing down even the most radiant spirit. ![]() She’s excited about making music and just being alive. One collaborator, Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, said, “All day long, Mavis is having a good time. Anyone who has something to say, she’ll help them say it, in an inimitable gospel voice. She has an abiding belief in God and His plan and believes the world is moving toward a higher and more loving world.” Staples has spent the past few decades lending her voice to a startling range of collaborators: Prince, Arcade Fire, Nona Hendryx, Ry Cooder, David Byrne. “She is a ray of sunshine,” Bonnie Raitt, her frequent touring companion, said. Her cheeks are round and smooth her hair is done in a copper bob her resting expression is one of delight. ![]() Sly, sociable, and funny, Staples reminds you of your mother’s most reliable and cheerful friend, the one who comes around with good gossip and a strawberry pie. Singing is what connects her to the world. Time, polyps, and a casual disdain for preservation have conspired to narrow her range and sand down her old shimmer, but she is not about to hum lightly through a rehearsal. While singers a fraction of her age go to great lengths to preserve their voices, drinking magical potions and warming up with the obsessive care of a gymnast, she doesn’t hold back. In her voice, “Help Me Jesus” is as suggestive as “Let’s Do It Again.” When she was a girl, singing with her family ensemble, the Staple Singers, churchgoers across the South Side of Chicago would wonder how a contralto so smoky and profound could issue from somebody so young. Staples sings from her depths, with low moans and ragged, seductive growls that cut through even the most pious lyric. ![]() Her stage presence is so unfailingly joyful-her nickname is Bubbles-that you never take your eyes off her. During concerts, sometimes, she might take a seat and rest while someone in her band bangs out a solo for a chorus or two. Mavis Staples has been a gospel singer longer than Elizabeth II has worn the crown. ![]()
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