Mavis Staples

Grim days call for fierce love. And Mavis Staples, one of the most enduring figures in American music, is laying it down. Sad and Beautiful World is the fifteenth solo album from a national treasure and multigenerational talent. On her new record, Mavis stands side by side with us in the face of dangers she knows all too well, at a time when more and more people have reason to wonder who and what could be lost.

Sad and Beautiful World was produced by Brad Cook, known for his work with Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, and Iron and Wine, among other artists. The record spans seven decades of the American songbook — a range nearly as vast as Mavis’ career — and includes reinventions of timeless songs as well as original music.

Now 86, Mavis has been performing since the age of eight. After starting out with her father Roebuck “Pops” Staples, sisters Cleotha and Yvonne, and brother Pervis in the Staple Singers more than seventy years ago, she’s the lone surviving member of the group, still carrying her family’s gifts and knowledge with her as a living heritage.

Inducted into several halls of fame (blues, rock, and gospel), a Kennedy Center Honoree, a winner of multiple Grammys (including a Lifetime Achievement award), Mavis is our musical history. She’s collaborated with nearly every major figure of her era(s), from Dylan to Prince, Aretha, and Willie — not to mention countless stars from subsequent generations.

Sad and Beautiful World includes cameos by artists who have become part of Mavis’ world, many of whom are legends in their own right. Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, MJ Lenderman, Justin Vernon, and others shine a light on her, while Mavis does what only she can do. Embracing vulnerability, she sings close and deep here, drawing the listener into a circle filled with her unforgettable presence.

The first track recorded for the album, “Human Mind,” was written for and about Mavis by Hozier and Allison Russell. Paying tribute to the complexity of life, Mavis expresses faith in humanity: “Even in these days, I find / this far down the line, /  I find good in it sometimes.” That magical last word — “sometimes” — shows her choosing hope, even with the disappointments that experience has brought.

Her take on Tom Waits’ “Chicago” flaunts her vocal prowess, opening the album with a high-octane journey North that her family actually made—a dream of a future, but one offering no guarantees. Guitar riffs from Buddy Guy and Derek Trucks layer the song with a musical legacy that rose out of that same migration, a migration that Guy himself also lived.

These are love songs for tough times. The title track, written by Mark Linkous (a.k.a. Sparklehorse), with its funeral-march rhythm and spare lyrics, finds beauty even in the midst of grief over everything that’s been lost. Mavis turns to Gillian Welch’s “Hard Times” to testify that “we’re gonna make it yet.”

On Kevin Morby’s “Beautiful Strangers,” she reminds those in danger, “If you ever hear the gunshot… think of mother / I am a rock.” Released over the summer, her version of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed,” delivers a staggering benediction to those who stumble: “There will be mountains you won’t move. / I’ll always be there for you.”

“We Got To Have Peace”, written by Curtis Mayfield, her friend and longtime collaborator, is framed by Mavis as a plea and a psalm. Yet her take on Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” carries a quiet fury that suggests choosing peace shouldn’t be mistaken for submission.

The album closes on two reflective notes. Mavis sings “Satisfied Mind,” a song made famous by Porter Wagoner, and delivers it from the perspective of a long life well lived, reminding listeners that fleeting glory makes for shallow victory. And with “Everybody Needs Love,” Mavis finishes with the joy she insists on spreading, reminding us that she’s here, that we cannot go it alone, and that we don’t have to.

It’s impossible to talk to Mavis’ collaborators without them bringing up the strength of her spirit and her generosity, growing animated over how much her songs mean to them. Allison Russell described hearing the Staple Singers as a preteen and finding out that Mavis had played a key part in the civil rights movement as a young woman.

Upon being told that a verse from “Human Mind” she’d written (“I am the last, daddy, the last of us”) had made Mavis cry, Russell said she’d been deeply affected. “Mavis is the transcendent force of love embodied,” she said. “There is no higher honor than one of my biggest heroes being moved by words I wrote.”

Producer Brad Cook tells stories about growing up listening to the Staple Singers. About seeing Mavis perform live, he said, “I remember being utterly floored by the conviction and power she had in her voice.”

To capture Mavis’ resonant phrasing and textured vocals, Cook tried to build every song around that voice. He began with spare skeleton recordings, just drum and piano, and focused on recording her vocals. Then he expanded the song from there, trying never to overshadow or undermine the framework she’d established. He imagined a record in the tradition of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a group of artists coming together to celebrate community—in this case, one centered on Mavis.

Sad and Beautiful World shows that love is a choice and a force all its own. The album is a litany of prayer, of Mavis breathing life into these songs. “I just have to deliver the compassion I feel,” she says. “I want to share the song the way I feel it.”

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More than seventy years after a high-school a cappella teacher tried and failed to change her singing style, Mavis Staples has one of the most recognizable voices in the world, with resonant phrasing and vocals so warm and textured, they feel like a physical presence.

Not only is Mavis still making studio albums, she’s still on the road, returning to venues like the Newport Folk Festival, where she’s been a fixture since 1964. This July at Newport, Public Enemy founders Chuck D and Flavor Flav dropped to their knees to bow down before her. She made clear it was all unnecessary, but there’s something regal about her that people respond to — a grace that rises out of lived experience.

Few people wield the combination of moral authority and the musical artistry that Mavis possesses. The moral authority comes from experiencing the Jim Crow era as a Black woman playing music in the South. With Freedom Highway, the Staple Singers created the literal soundtrack for the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. They opened for Martin Luther King Jr. at his rallies. Mavis has spent a lifetime standing up for those people the most powerful among us would like to beat down.

She considered retiring in 2023 but found she has too much left to express through music. And now, despite our dark days, as she said in the wake of her 85th birthday party last year, “You have to stay hopeful and have faith that things are going to get better.” She can’t keep us from the danger facing the country, or magically restore the progress that’s being undone. But she knows from her own experience that it’s possible to find a path through, a way to keep going.

She may be one of the last true ones standing, but she’s not waiting around to be revered for the wisdom she brings. She’s too busy still leading the charge, still showing us how it’s done. Steadfast in triumph and adversity, Mavis Staples is still making music—and history—just when we need her most.