Artist:Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939) is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band the Staple Singers, of which she is the last surviving member. During her time in the group, she recorded the hit singles "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again." In 1969, Staples released her self-titled debut solo album.

Staples continued to release solo albums throughout the following decades and collaborated with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Prince, Arcade Fire, Nona Hendryx, Ry Cooder, David Byrne, and former romantic partner Bob Dylan. Her eighth studio album You Are Not Alone (2010) earned critical acclaim and became her first album as a soloist to reach number one on a Billboard chart, peaking atop the Top Gospel Albums chart. It also earned Staples her first Grammy Award win. Following this, she released the albums One True Vine (2013), Livin' on a High Note (2016), If All I Was Was Black (2017), and We Get By (2019); she is also featured on the single "Nina Cried Power" by Hozier.

As a member of the Staple Singers, Staples is the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has won five solo Grammy Awards, including one for Album of the Year as a featured artist on We Are by Jon Batiste. Named one of the "Greatest Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone, Staples was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999) and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2018) as a member of the Staple Singers. In 2016, she was made a Kennedy Center Honoree. The following year, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame as a soloist. In 2019, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honored her with their inaugural Rock Hall Honors Award for her solo work.

Staples was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 10, 1939. She attended elementary school with Lou Rawls and Sam Cooke. She began her career with her family group in 1950. Initially singing locally at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show, the Staples scored a hit in 1956 with "Uncloudy Day" for the Vee-Jay label. When Mavis graduated from Parker High School (later named Paul Robeson High School) in 1957, the Staple Singers took their music on the road. Led by family patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples on guitar and including the voices of Mavis and her siblings Cleotha, Yvonne, and Pervis, the Staples were called "God's Greatest Hitmakers."

With Mavis's voice and Pops's songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from popular gospel singers to become one of the most influential spirituality-based groups in America. By the mid-1960s the Staple Singers, inspired by Pops's close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., became the spiritual and musical voices of the civil rights movement. They covered contemporary hits that conveyed positive messages, including Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and a version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth."

During a December 20, 2008, appearance on National Public Radio's news show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, when Staples was asked about her past personal relationship with Dylan, she admitted that they "were good friends, yes indeed" and that he had asked her father for her hand in marriage.

The Staples sang "message" songs like "Long Walk to D.C." and "When Will We Be Paid?," bringing their moving and articulate music to a huge number of young people. The group signed to Stax Records in 1968, joining their gospel harmonies and deep faith with musical accompaniment from members of Booker T. and the MGs. The Staple Singers hit the top 40 eight times between 1971 and 1975, including two No. 1 singles, "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again," and the No. 2 single "Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas?"

Mavis made her first solo foray while at Epic Records with the Staple Singers, releasing a lone single, "Crying in the Chapel," to little fanfare in the late 1960s. The single was later re-released on the 1994 Sony Music collection Lost Soul. Her first solo album came in 1969 with a self-titled release for the Stax label. After another Stax release, Only for the Lonely, in 1970, she released a soundtrack album, A Piece of the Action, on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label. A 1984 album (also self-titled) preceded two albums under the direction of Prince: 1989's Time Waits for No One, followed by 1993's The Voice, which People magazine named one of the Top Ten Albums of 1993. Her 1996 release, Spirituals & Gospels: A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson, was recorded with keyboardist Lucky Peterson and honors Mahalia Jackson, a close family friend and significant influence on Staples's life.

Staples made a major national return with the release of the album Have a Little Faith on Chicago's Alligator Records in 2004. The album featured spiritual music, some of it semi-acoustic.

In 2004, Staples contributed to the album That's What I Say, a tribute to Ray Charles by guitarist John Scofield, which led to a live tour. In 2007, she released We'll Never Turn Back, produced by Ry Cooder, focusing on gospel songs of the civil rights movement and including new original songs.