“It’s dark in the United States right now.” But I turn on the light, you know?’: Mavis Staples on Prince, Martin Luther King and her 75-year singing career | Mavis Staples

Can you talk? around A collection of songs and artists on your new record? What kind of message and lyrics do you want to sing at this point in your life? steve_bayley
The first song I got for the album was Human Mind, written by Hozier and Alison Russell, which really set the tone for the whole record. It begins: “I deal with love, my dear, with kind words from above… and I do not give up.” I cried when I tried to sing it for the first time. Then the next song was “Beautiful Strangers” by Kevin Morby. All the songs are a part of me and what I’ve been singing my whole life. There are some about war, fighting, and love…and some about hard times, like the farmer who lost his farm. Things are going on in the world today, so Sad and Beautiful World is the perfect title.

I loved the documentary Summer of the soul. What was it like playing there? [the 1969 Harlem Cultural festival] And singing along Mahalia Jackson? Same question for whatstax [the 1973 Stax Records benefit concert in Watts, LA, to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the 1965 riots]. snak3span

It was an honor to sing with Sister Mahalia Jackson. She was my role model. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I walked up to her and said, “My name is Mavis and I sing too.” “Oh, do you? Well, I want to hear you,” she said. I said, “You’ll hear me because I’m loud.” Then I started out the door to jump rope, because we kids didn’t want to hear the preacher. She pulled me to her, touched my neck and said I was wet. “Don’t go out in the air when you’re so wet,” she said. “You want to be an old lady like me and sing, don’t you?” She was teaching me how to take care of my voice. So he became my role model, my mentor and my friend. The Summer of Soul concert was a fun time. Sister Mahalia said to me: “Darling, Hayley is not feeling well” — she always called herself Hayley — “I want you to help me sing this song.” That’s why I come to the Lord Precious, take my hand. Wattstax was a different ball game, because we were working in Las Vegas and had to rush there. So in the documentary you see us in the back seat of the car having lunch. We didn’t have a chance to stay. It was fun to watch the movie because it was my first time watching the show.

You were influential in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Do we need another civil rights movement now, 50 years later? 2023 AD
When I did my Freedom Songs album with Ry Cooder [We’ll Never Turn Back, 2007] We sang a song called 99 and 1/2. You know, 99 and a half won’t be enough… We have to earn a hundred. We have to keep pushing because the struggle is still alive.

I discovered your music through Prince – Victor’s sacrificea video release of one of his later performances at Bagley in London [1993]. Were those times and this show as fun as it seemed? DrLongpigIPresume
Oh, Lord. Anytime I was with Prince was fun. I liked him very much but he was painfully shy. He talked to my sister more than me. He just looked at me, rolled those big eyes and smiled. I thought: Well, if he’s going to write to me, he must know something about me. So I wrote him some letters and the first album he produced for me [Time Waits for No One, 1989] He had songs or lyrics from what I talked about in my letters. For example, I told him that I married an undertaker, and so on with the undertaker [on The Voice, 1993] He wrote: “Don’t move on, you may never come back… Don’t be another undertaker’s number.” He was a genius. He kept it all to himself, and then it would go out like an explosion.

How did you find working with David Byrne when staple Singers covered slippery people? Twig_the_Wonderkid

Another shy guy. He mostly talked to my dad, but I liked David. He came to my birthday celebration in New York and we sang Slippery People together. Then I had the pleasure of going to his show on Broadway. He loves riding his bike. He was photographed with his bike at “No to Kings” rallies? I’m not surprised. He rode that bike everywhere.

Watching old videos of you, when you sing, there are moments where you go so deep that you seem to be in a trance. Is this really the case? bluesgal
I’m surprised but glad someone noticed this. Sometimes, the spirit moves you. I definitely get lost in the music when I’m on stage. My father taught me: “Mavis, if you sing from your heart, you will reach people, because what comes from the heart reaches the heart.” So when the spirit hits me, you’ll see Mavis looking like a zombie up there.

Is it true that you heard? Martin Luther King Give the “I Have a Dream” part of his famous speech before and I screamed “Tell them about your dream, Martin,” so he can use it that day? I was also in Lauren Motel in Memphis When he was shot. What do you remember about that day? simonbaf
It was Sister Mahalia Jackson who shouted: “Tell them about your dream.” I also never called Dr. King “Martin,” it was always “Dr. King.” We were not at the Lorraine Hotel when Dr. King was assassinated, we were close by, although we stayed there a few times because it was a black-owned hotel, so in the 1960s it was the only place we could stay. We saw Dr. King every morning. He’d come down to breakfast and say, “How are you girls doing this morning?” He didn’t have to say anything: he was so strong that you felt his presence. He would call my father, “Stay,” and he would say, “Stay. Will you sing my song tonight?” His favorite song was Why Am I Treated So Badly, so we had to sing it every night at his meetings before he got up to speak.

I read in the liner notes about your father’s moment [Roebuck “Pops” Staples] I handed you some missing tapes and told you: “Don’t lose this.” You did a great job with them – do you have your own “lost tapes”? com. tommytacker
My father was on his sickbed and he called me upstairs and asked me to bring him the last music he had recorded and said, “Mavis, don’t lose this.” But it wasn’t finished yet, so I asked Jeff Tweedy if he would help me finish this recording of the last Pops music. When my sister Yvonne and I went into the studio and heard Pops sing Friendship, we just broke down. But it came out very beautiful. That’s why the album is called “Don’t Lose This.” Most of the stuff I’ve done has been released, and if it hasn’t, it’s probably because it didn’t come out right or I didn’t like it. There’s not a whole bunch of stuff, but if the record company wants to announce it later, that’s fine.

I heard it for the first time I will take you there In third grade when a classmate brought over this precious 45 RPM. Have other listeners shared with you how the Staple Singers positively influenced them as young people? Dapmine
Yes, of course. I love kids and it’s amazing to see so many of them at our shows these days. They come up to the front row and sing with me, and sometimes I take them up on stage. I call them teenagers. I liked it because I thought young people weren’t interested in what we were singing about. But I discovered different.

I have Stax records in mind It was a true band of sisters and brothers pushing boundaries and making magic, with a shared vision of art, freedom, and goodness. Is this the reality? Mr_202
I had the pleasure of working at Stax because they had all these great people like David Porter and Isaac Hayes. We called Otis Redding “the football player” because he was so big, but he had such a beautiful soul. They had a mixed bag [race] The band is at Booker T and MG’s. In the early 1960s, two white men and two black men weren’t supposed to work together, but at Stax no one looked at color. Anyone can come into your session, sit and listen. It was like a family, now they have a museum, and a lot of teenagers can see Stax today.

Is this the darkest time I’ve ever lived or am I a fool to believe it? com. babylonfalling
It’s very dark. There are some things happening in the United States that I don’t like, but I keep my head up. Turn on the light, you know, I don’t dwell on it. If someone needs me, I’ll be there, but I’m leaving this darkness outside my home and out of my life. You can’t let them bring you down.

Of all the people you’ve worked with, who is the most memorable? telboy1959
Oh, my God. everyone. I’m happy to be able to do what I do, and I’m grateful that they want to work with me. I had the best life in the world and I couldn’t ask for anything more. I’m a happy old girl.