But as the ’70s waned and the ’80s emerged, the Staple Singers’ moment seemed over. They would appear every so often with a new record on a new label, and every now and then Mavis would release another not very successful solo effort: There was the soundtrack to A Piece Of The Action in 1977, produced by her old friend Curtis Mayfield; an album in 1984 with the legendary Motown songwriting team Holland/Dozier/Holland; and two spotty albums with Prince as the ’80s turned to the ’90s. It looked like Mavis Staples’ moment was over too.
Now, though, Mavis Staples, one of the great singers in American music, is creating a second act for herself. She may never be as well-known as she was during the Staple Singers’ Stax years, but lately she has been making some of the best work of her life. Signs of renewed vigor were first spotted in 1996 when she released a stunning if little-known album-length collaboration with organist Lucky Peterson, Spirituals & Gospel: Dedicated To Mahalia Jackson.
After that record, though, her father’s poor health kept her mostly out of the spotlight for a time. Pops’ death in 2000 at age 85, and the death of her younger sister Cynthia (who had not been part of the singing group), threw her into a depression that kept her away from music still longer.
But now she’s making up for lost time. In 2002, she recorded a fiercely rocking duet with Bob Dylan, “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking”, that was nominated for a Grammy (it’s included on the Dylan gospel tribute disc Gotta Serve Somebody). And last year, she contributed yet another striking version of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” to Johnny’s Blues: A Tribute To Johnny Cash.
But 2004 may go down, at least for fans of gospel and soul music, as The Year Of The Voice. So far this year, Mavis has appeared on Los Lobos’ The Ride (singing “Someday”) and she provides lead vocals to two tracks of Dr. John’s N’awlinz: Dis, Dat Or D’udda (“When The Saints Go Marching In” and “Lay My Burden Down”). She also recorded “Hard Times Come Again No More” for the Stephen Foster tribute Beautiful Dreamer, and she performs the title track on Touch My Heart, a Johnny Paycheck tribute disc.
“I made it a point,” Mavis says by way of explanation for so many one-offs in so brief a stretch, “to get out there and be heard! When someone asked me to sing, my first words were ‘Yes. When do you want me?’ Because I need to be heard, I need to sing. I’m happiest when I’m singing.”
Her new album was born from another isolated track. After September 11, Chicago producer and songwriter Jim Tulio wrote a song, “In Times Like These”, that a friend told him would be ideal for Mavis Staples. Mavis agreed, but the track wasn’t released at the time because the charity for which it was slated never came to fruition. The pair developed a friendship, however, and soon were recording an album for the Alligator label.
“I’ve already heard some people asking why I would go to a blues label — well, why not? I feel safe with them, like I won’t get lost in the shuffle,” she says. “Everyone wants to see children today, they want teenyboppers, but here I feel like I’m with grown people.”
The resulting Have A Little Faith is deeply informed by the blues. The album begins with “Step Into The Light”, as Mavis moans over an acoustic slide guitar before declaring, “Believe what you want, that no one will care when you die; the world keeps rolling by.” The track ends with her anticipating a place where there is no more sorrow and no more pain, a place where “I will meet my dear old mother…[and] meet my loving father.”
It’s an apt opener for an album that mourns Staples’ recent losses by honoring where her father came from and the lessons he taught her. For example, a haunting yet hopeful version of “Dying Man’s Plea”, acoustic and gently funky and with a fiddle solo at the break, acknowledges her father’s Delta roots: “One kind favor I’ll ask of you,” she pleads. “See that my grave is kept clean.” And “Pops Recipe” shares her father’s wisdom with the world: “He said accept responsibility, don’t forget humility; at every opportunity, serve your artistry; don’t subscribe to bigotry, hypocrisy, duplicity; respect humanity.”
The album ends with a new recording of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, this time rendered as down-home, front-porch blues. “There’s a better home a-waiting,” she declares, “in the sky, Lord, in the sky.” Then she offers a strangled cry that seems to get at something beyond words; it acknowledges great suffering and, therefore, is delivered with great tenderness, and she conveys this felt wisdom with no words at all, just a husky, jagged gospel moan.
“That song means so very much to me,” Mavis says. She pauses a moment to make sure she gets her words just right. “You see, our circle has been broken. My mother has passed on, my Pops passed on, my baby sister passed on. It’s a song about death, but it’s a song about homecoming, too. It’s a song about a place where the circle won’t be broken anymore and we’ll all meet up again, where we’ll have our circle again.
“It’s a song that says to me, and to you, and to everyone who hears me, ‘There’s a better home a-waiting.'”
ND senior editor David Cantwell lives in Kansas City, Missouri, the heart of red-state America, where we all know we are free because we have two lousy options from which to choose. If David were to compile a list of the greatest singles ever made, regardless of genre, he’d place “I’ll Take You There” at the very top of the list, in large part because it seems to argue that, when faced with lousy options all around, you don’t settle for the least lousy one; you work to create new and better options. Won’t somebody he’p me now!
