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Few people embody the feminist adage “the personal is political” more than Mavis Staples. Throughout a five-decade career in the legendary Staple Singers and on her own, she’s consistently tied together music, political involvement and the closest of family ties. With the release of her 11th CD, We’ll Never Turn Back, and its new renditions of Civil Rights-era songs, Staples comes full circle and, in the process, offers some of the freshest and most powerful work of her solo career.
“I am a witness,” says Staples from her Chicago home. “I saw it with my own eyes and I can tell the world about it. I don’t have to ask nobody about it. I lived it.”
Andy Kaulkin, president of Epitaph Records and its Anti- imprint, a growing indie with a roster that includes Tom Waits, Neko Case, Merle Haggard, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Buju Banton, and Antibalas, was inspired by that history, having just read Congressman John Lewis’s book, Walking With The Wind: A Memoir Of The Movement. “When my manager told me Andy’s idea [for this album],” Staples relates, “I said, ‘What does he mean freedom songs? That’s in the past.’ And then I started thinking, well, it really isn’t. I thought about Katrina. I actually had flashbacks from the Movement when I saw those people standing on the tops of houses with signs. Then you have a policeman in New York City shooting this black man 50 times. What was wrong with the comedian that was yelling the N-word on stage? I mean where did that come from? It’s still not the way it should be, and I don’t know if it ever will be. So that’s why, after I started thinking about all that, I said, ‘Well, yes, I’ll do these freedom songs.’ And it made sense to do because this is a part of my life too.”
Staples started singing as a child with her father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, and siblings Pervis (replaced by Yvonne in 1970) and Cleotha. In the early ’50s, recording for United, Royal and Vee-Jay, the Staple Singers began to develop their trademark sound: a blend of gospel and the Charley Patton-styled Delta blues Pops heard growing up in Mississippi, fueled by his quavery guitar and light voice, Mavis’s deep one and the kind of harmonies only family can create.
In the ’60s, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they began performing the freedom songs that became an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement. “We went to jail down there,” Staples recalls. “The police had shotguns on us, had us standing out on the highway, cars zooming past, calling my father ‘boy.’ That particular incident scared me to death. I really didn’t know what they were going to do. They could have just taken us on out in the woods.
“But Pops kept us cool. Pops kept us from being afraid. Pops would tell us, ‘Don’t start anything.’ But he would also tell us, ‘None of that “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am.”’ Daddy wouldn’t take nothing. There are certain things you are just not going to do for your dignity.”
Signed to Stax in 1968 and teamed with a house band that included members of Booker T. and the MG’s, the Staples continued to do “message music,” but with more of a soul bent. It brought them eight Top 40 hits, including the million sellers, “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There” (both featured, along with “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” on the Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration two-CD set).
Staples also recorded her first and most mainstream solo albums for Stax. She followed sporadically with releases on Warner Bros., Curtom, Phono, and, in the ’80s, two CDs with Prince. But over a decade passed (not counting 1996’s Spirituals And Gospel: A Tribute To Mahalia Jackson with Lucky Peterson) before Staples resurfaced on Chicago’s Alligator Records in 2004 with Have A Little Faith. The album was a commercial breakthrough for her, leading to dates at festivals, late night TV appearances and a performance at the Democratic National Convention, a Grammy nomination, three W.C. Handy awards and a National Heritage Fellowship—the first time a father (Pops in 1998) and daughter were individually honored.
After signing to Anti-, Staples hooked up with Ry Cooder to produce the new CD. Cooder was a fan of Pops, having worked on both his solo albums, Peace To The Neighborhood and Father Father. “He’s crazy about Pops,” Staples says. “And he knows Pops’ guitar. It just felt like I was with Pops at times. I listened to these songs and said, ‘Did he hit that string or did Ry do it’?”
Cooder, known in world music circles for his work with the Buena Vista Social Club artists and Ali Farka Touré, also helped bring South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the project.
“We went over there for the first time in 1976 and couldn’t even walk down the street without a white person with us. We couldn’t buy a newspaper,” Staples recalls. “We were to sing in Johannesburg. Pops went to the soundcheck and found out they wanted whites to sit downstairs and blacks up in the balcony. Pops told them, ‘No, we’re not going to sing like that. You do what you want to do. Send us home. But we’re not singing with the blacks in the balcony.’ Our concert was in Soweto at the soccer field. And this was the first time blacks and whites sat side by side. When we got home, the minute we turned on the news, they were having an uprising. I said, ‘Lord have mercy, did we have something to do with this’?”
We’ll Never Turn Back features versions of songs from the Civil Rights era (“Eyes on the Prize,” “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “This Little Light”), but with updated lyrics and a fresh, contemporary sound. The Freedom Singers, who also guest here, contributed the chilling “In the Mississippi River,” and Cooder wrote the elegiac, “I’ll Be Rested.” But it’s Staples’ own song, “My Own Eyes,” that is the focal point of the album, pulling together the personal and political storylines that run through the entire CD.
“Maybe some of these songs will rub off,” Staples concludes. “When we got started with this CD, I thought we were doing something really special, something that will be here even after Ry and I are gone on to glory. I just feel good. I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
THE STAPLE SINGERS
Freedom Highway
Columbia/Legacy, 1991
Culled from the Staples’ Epic albums, this is the deep stuff: spirituals and freedom songs pioneered during the Civil Rights Movement. Though the settings are spare, the music is transcendent and as fresh, powerful and relevant today as when it was first recorded.
THE STAPLE SINGERS
The Best Of The Staple Singers
Fantasy/Stax, 1991
16 tracks from the Staples’ hit-laden early ’70s tenure with Stax, including “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You There,” “Heavy Makes You Happy,” “If You’re Ready,” and “Dock of the Bay.”
MAVIS STAPLES
The Voice
Paisley Park/Warner Bros., 1993
The second and best of two albums Staples did with Prince.
MAVIS STAPLES
Have A Little Faith
Alligator, 2004
Her first solo release in over a decade and turning point in her solo career, Faith is a solid set rooted in gospel and soul with hints of funk and country blues.
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