R&B singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples was born in Chicago in 1939. Her deep, distinctive voice has given her success as a gospel singer and pop performer for over 50 years.
Mavis Staples began her career in the early 1950s performing gospel songs on a weekly radio show, in the family group The Staple Singers. Through her father’s association with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the group became a dominant voice in the civil rights movement, performing cover versions of contemporary songs such as Stephen Stills’ “For What it’s Worth" and "A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan.
The band moved away from their gospel roots and towards pop, enjoying a successful chart career between 1971 and 1975, including two No.1s, “I’ll Take You There” and “Lets Do It Again”. Staples solo career ran in tandem with the group, releasing her self-titled debut in 1969. Her solo albums were moderately successful although she came to prominence in the 80s when one of her fans, Prince, produced Time Waits for No Man and The Voice, which was included in People magazine's Top 10 Albums of the Year list. Staples also appeared in the Prince film Graffiti Bridge and other films including The Last Waltz and Wattstax.
A collaboration with another fan, Bob Dylan, on his Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan album earned the pair a Grammy nomination for the single “Gotta Change My Way of Thinking”. She has also performed with The Band and Ray Charles, while her music has been sampled by Salt-N-Pepa, Ice Cube and Ludacris.
Returning to her early work themes, her most recent release We’ll Never Turn Back is a Ry Cooder produced album of songs about the civil rights movement.
To use the music player, install Flash.
| Editor | Edits |
|---|---|
| Gowtham | 2 |
| BigBadBluesMan | 1 |
| Brigid | 1 |
| debruno | 1 |
company
