Mavis Staples

WELLS FARGO JAZZ MAVIS STAPLES MAVIS STAPLES Gaillard Municipal Auditorium June 6 at 7:00pm PRESENTED BY WELLS FARGO Mavis Staples, vocals with Yvonne Staples, vocals Vicki Randle, vocals Donny Gerrard, vocals Rick Holmstrom, guitar Jeff Turmes, guitar and bass Stephen Hodges, drums PERFORMED WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION. Mavis Staples, born in 1939, is the youngest civil rights leader after the show. The meeting had a profound of four children. Her mother Oceala died effect on the group’s direction, and for the next several years when Mavis was still very young, so she and they wrote songs exclusively in support of the American civil her three older siblings—Cleotha, Pervis rights movement. “I really like this man’s message,” Pops Staples and Yvonne—were raised primarily by their said of King. “And I think if he can preach it, we can sing it.’’ The father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples. He worked Staple Singers’ civil rights songs included “March Up Freedom’s at the Dockery’s Farm cotton plantation Highway,” about the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches, in Drew, Mississippi, and learned guitar “Washington, We’re Watching You,” “It’s a Long Walk to D.C.,” from the great Delta blues pioneer Charley and “Why Am I Treated So Bad,” in honor of the Little Rock Nine. Patton. Three years before Mavis was born, Pops moved to The Staple Singers achieved their greatest success in the early Chicago and found a job in a meatpacking factory. He played in 1970s as they moved away from traditional gospel and protest songs a gospel quartet called the Trumpet Jubilees throughout the late to record empowerment anthems such as “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll 1930s and early 1940s, but eventually grew frustrated with his Take You There,” and soulful R&B love songs like “Let’s Do It Again,” bandmates’ lack of commitment to their music. their only song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. Mavis Staples recalls that when she was eight years old, her Beginning with her 1969 self-titled debut solo album, Mavis father turned to his children to become his new bandmates: Staples also maintained a solo career while she worked with The “Pops finally came home one night, got the guitar out of the Staple Singers. And while she released eight solo albums during closet and called us in the living room, sat us on the floor in a the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, all of which received high praise circle and started giving us our parts.” Two years later, when from those critics who noticed, none of her solo material found she was 10 years old, the family band made its debut singing much of an audience. That pattern finally changed with Staples’ at a Chicago church. After they received an enormous ovation, 2004 album Have a Little Faith, her first release following the Staples recalls her father saying, “Shucks, these people like us. death of her father in 2000. The album received rave reviews, We’re going home to learn some more songs!” Although she was paving the way for Staples to achieve a late career renaissance the band’s youngest member, Mavis Staples soon became its lead with the albums We’ll Never Turn Back (2007) and Live: Hope at singer, with a logic-defying voice that more properly belonged to the Hideout (2008). Her most recent album, 2010’s You Are Not a woman several decades older and many times larger. Alone, won the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album. In 1953 The Staple Singers signed with the small gospel label Mavis Staples will doubtless go down in history as one of Vee-Jay Records and released their first song, “Sit Down, Servant.” the greatest gospel singers of all time—the breathtaking voice Three years later, they scored their first major hit with “Uncloudy powering one of America’s great family bands, The Staple Day,” introducing Staples’ surprisingly mature vocals to a national Singers. From the traditional gospel music of the 1950s to the audience for the first time. The Staple Singers toured the country 1960s protest songs that underscored some of the decade’s most and developed an impressive grassroots following, but they dramatic social changes, from the self-empowerment anthems limited their concerts to weekends until Mavis Staples graduated of the 1970s to the soulful love tunes and mature Americana from high school in 1957. They recorded two more national hits of more recent years, Staples and her family have consistently in the late 1950s—“Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “This May created some of the best and most inspirational music of the past Be the Last Time,” a song later adapted by The Rolling Stones. half-century. And although Staples is now more than 70 years old, In 1963, with their celebrity rising thanks to a nationwide she has no intention of giving up the calling that has consumed folk and blues revival, The Staple Singers delivered a concert in her since she was a child. “Ain’t no stopping me, I will sing,” Montgomery, Alabama, that was attended by Reverend Martin Staples declared in a recent interview. “You know, you’d have to Luther King, Jr., and they had the opportunity to speak with the come and scoop me off the stage. I’m gonna sing till I die.” 109.

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