Mavis Staples does more than just get by. There’s no quit in her. At 80, she’s still a powerhouse, dominating the stage and the studio, her voice and her mission statement still as strong as ever. Accompanied by Rick Holmstrom’s […]
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Mavis Staples takes the live album seriously. In a nearly 70-year recording career, she’s only released a few, and each one has meaning to it. Freedom Highway, the 1965 Staple Singers live release, is a vital documentation of the civil […]
I was bringing my wife, Elizabeth, her morning coffee as I always do, just as we spend the first few moments of every morning – she quietly browsing the headlines while I write a little. This morning, however, when I […]
Have you seen dignity? These days, we know where not to look for it. But it was there, so very much there, at the filled-to-capacity Beacon Theater, on March 15th, for the second annual Love Rocks NYC to benefit God’s […]
Listening is inevitably a subjective process. That said, I do my best to practice suspending or expanding my default filters in order to be more receptive to forms of aesthetic excellence that might not be congruent with my preferences. For […]
What is even wrong with you, 2017? I mean, I’d thought 2016 was rough. For one, my estranged dad died. He was a monstrous clod of a man, a selfish beast with awful habits like showing up at karaoke in […]
Sometimes a hero swoops in just when you need one, and in today’s divided world, Mavis Staples might just be the one wearing the cape. On an album that rises higher than hate and embraces love, in songs written by […]
In the week my home city of Newcastle in NE England is celebrating a full year commemorating the Rev’d King being awarded the Freedom of our City 50 years ago in 1967; and a speech he made condemning the racism […]
They may seem like an unlikely duo, but legendary soul singer Mavis Staples and legendary Americana rocker Jeff Tweedy have always been a natural fit. On their third collaboration, If All I Was Was Black, Staples and Tweedy came together […]
Mavis Staples just announced plans to release a new studio album, titled If All I Was Was Black. The album marks Staples’ third outing with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who wrote and produced all of the album’s songs (Staples co-writes with […]
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