Tag: Mavis Staples

The legendary Mavis Staples comes to Medford, bringing ‘inspiration and positive vibrations’

Mavis Staples and Rick Holmstrom. Photo (cc) 2015 by Bruce Baker.

Mavis Staples’ late-career stardom is a thing of wonder and beauty. The former lead singer of the legendary Staple Singers has recorded eight studio albums since 2004, including the recent “Sad and Beautiful World.” At 86, she’s still touring, mixing old and new material, backed by a rock trio anchored by Rick Holmstrom — who, by the way, should be at the top of any list of great but unheralded guitarists.

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Staples and her band, supplemented by two backup singers, performed Saturday night at the Chevalier Theatre in Medford. It was the third time we’d seen them; pre-COVID, we’d been to concerts at UMass Boston and at the Cabot Performing Arts Center in Beverly. Mavis has slowed down, but not by much. She had to take a seat on occasion, but she spent most of the night on her feet. And her message was direct, from promising “inspiration and positive vibrations,” to giving a shoutout to the “No Kings” movement, to invoking the late John Lewis’ plea that we all make “good trouble.”

For me, the highlight came early. “I’m Just Another Soldier,” an old Staple Singers song, hit hard, especially this verse:

Now Martin, John and Bobby once fought here by my side
But the captain called then to that command post in the sky
This army needs you my friend, this army needs me
And I believe if we all get together right now hatred would cease to be

“Human Mind,” from “Sad and Beautiful World,” conjured up her family, with whom she performed for so many years. You have to have been around for a long time to remember that the Staple Singers were the creation of her father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, who sang and played guitar. Mavis grew into the lead singer’s role, backed by a rotating cast of her sisters and brother, with Pops as the anchor. Though she didn’t write “Human Mind,” it was hard not to think of that history as she sang:

I dealed in loss, daddyI am the last, daddy, last of usAin’t always easy to believeI miss my family, daddy

I wasn’t taking notes, but Terence Cawley was, and he’s written a sharp, comprehensive review for Boston.com. It was an extraordinary evening as well as a chance to commune with one of the great souls of our age.

‘Summer of Soul’ is the definition of must-see TV

You may have heard that “Summer of Soul” is the must-see music documentary of 2021. You heard correctly. I saw it last night on Hulu, and it is magnificent. From Stevie Wonder to the Edwin Hawkins Singers, from Gladys Knight and the Pips to the Chambers Brothers, “Summer of Soul” is packed with two hours of great music, the fascinating story of how it came together, and the cultural and political context in which it played out.

The film shows us highlights from six free concerts held in Harlem during the summer of 1969, the same summer that gave us Woodstock. Needless to say, the music was a lot better at the Harlem Cultural Festival.

Though there’s too much cutting away from the music for my tastes, director Questlove chose wisely, devoting the longest uninterrupted stretches to Sly and the Family Stone and to Nina Simone. Also transcendent: a 30-year-old Mavis Staples dueting with her idol, Mahalia Jackson, on “Precious Lord,” dedicated to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

You might also be interested in this post by journalist Greg Mitchell, who finds that claims of the footage being “locked in a basement” for the past 50 years are greatly exaggerated. It turns out that some of the key performances, including Sly’s and Simone’s, had been available on YouTube for years.

Unfortunately, since Mitchell’s piece was published, Disney has blocked access. Which is all the more reason to see “Summer of Soul.”

Album #25: Mavis Staples, ‘We Get By’

Like many people, I recently took the 10-album challenge on Facebook. It was fun, but I found it too limiting. Only 10? Plus you’re discouraged from offering any commentary, and the albums are supposed to be those that influenced your musical tastes, not necessarily the ones you think are the best.

Given all that, I thought I would write about my top 25. It’s a fluid list — ask me six months from now and it might be different. But these are 25 albums that mean a lot to me, and I’m going to try to rank them in some kind of order. My only self-imposed rule is that I won’t choose more than one album by any particular musician or band.

I’ll start with Mavis Staples’ 2019 album “We Get By,” which will certainly be the most recent entry on the list. A few years ago WUMB Radio (91.9 FM) reintroduced me to Staples. I’m in my 60s, so the Staple Singers were a radio, ah, staple when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Back then, though, I didn’t pay much attention. It turns out that they were great, and that Mavis, at 80, is still going strong. Indeed, we saw her in 2017 at UMass Boston and in 2019 at the Cabot in Beverly, and I swear she had more stamina at the second show.

I like all of Staples’ albums from recent years, but “We Get By” is the strongest. Written and produced by Ben Harper, it features a crack hard-rock trio, as does her terrific live album, also released in 2019, called “Live in London.” The standout track on “We Get By” is “Sometime,” which would have been a Staple Singers hit in 1971.

The Mavis Staples revival has sent me back into the Staple Singers catalog. And there are days when I think “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)” is the last song I want to hear before they turn off the lights once and for all.

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