Staples was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 10, 1939. She began her career with her family group in 1950. Initially singing locally at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show, the Staples scored a hit in 1956 with "Uncloudy Day" for the Vee-Jay label. When Mavis graduated from what is now Paul Robeson High School in 1957, The Staple Singers took their music on the road. Led by family patriarch Roebuck "Pops" Staples on guitar and including the voices of Mavis and her siblings Cleotha, Yvonne, and Pervis, the Staples were called "God's Greatest Hitmakers".
With Mavis' voice and Pops' songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from enormously popular gospel singers (with recordings on United and Riverside as well as Vee-Jay) to become the most spectacular and influential spirituality-based group in America. By the mid-1960s The Staple Singers, inspired by Pops' close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., became the spiritual and musical voices of the civil rights movement. They covered contemporary hits that conveyed positive messages, including Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and a version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth".
During a December 20, 2008, appearance on National Public Radio's news show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, when Staples was asked about her past personal relationship with Dylan, she admitted that they "were good friends, yes indeed" and that he had asked her father for her hand in marriage.[11]
Staples in 1971, while signed to Stax Records
The Staples sang "message" songs like "Long Walk to D.C." and "When Will We Be Paid?," bringing their moving and articulate music to a huge number of young people. The group signed to Stax Records in 1968, joining their gospel harmonies and deep faith with musical accompaniment from members of Booker T. and the MGs. The Staple Singers hit the Top 40 eight times between 1971 and 1975, including two No. 1 singles, "I'll Take You There", produced by Al Bell and recorded and mixed by Terry Manning, "Let's Do It Again," and a No. 2 single "Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas?"
Mavis made her first solo foray while at Epic Records with The Staple Singers, releasing a lone single "Crying in the Chapel" to little fanfare in the late 1960s.[12] The single was finally re-released on the 1994 Sony Music collection Lost Soul. Her first solo album would not come until a 1969 self-titled release for the Stax label. After another Stax release, Only for the Lonely, in 1970, she released a soundtrack album, A Piece of the Action, on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label. A 1984 album (also self-titled) preceded two albums under the direction of rock star Prince; 1989's Time Waits for No One, followed by 1993's The Voice, which People magazine named one of the Top Ten Albums of 1993. Her 1996 release, Spirituals & Gospels: A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson, was recorded with keyboardist Lucky Peterson. The recording honors Mahalia Jackson, a close family friend and a significant influence on Mavis Staples's life.
Staples singing during the 2006 NEA National Heritage Fellows concert.
Staples made a major national return with the release of the album Have a Little Faith on Chicago's Alligator Records, produced by Jim Tullio, in 2004. The album featured spiritual music, some of it semi-acoustic.
In 2003, Staples performed in Memphis at the Orpheum Theater alongside a cadre of her fellow former Stax Records stars during "Soul Comes Home," a concert held in conjunction with the grand opening of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music at the original site of Stax Records, and appears on the CD and DVD that were recorded and filmed during the event. In 2004, she returned as guest artist for the Stax Music Academy's SNAP! Summer Music Camp and performed again at the Orpheum with 225 of the academy's students. In June 2007, she again returned to the venue to perform at the Stax 50th Anniversary Concert to Benefit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, produced by Concord Records, who now owns and has revived the Stax Records label.
Staples was a judge for the 3rd and 7th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.[14]
I've been singing my freedom songs and I wanted to stretch out and sing some songs that were new. I told the writers I was looking for some joyful songs. I want to leave something to lift people up; I'm so busy making people cry, not from sadness, but I'm always telling a part of history that brought us down and I'm trying to bring us back up. These songwriters gave me a challenge. They gave me that feeling of, 'Hey, I can hang! I can still do this!' There's a variety, and it makes me feel refreshed and brand new. Just like Benjamin Booker wrote on the opening track, 'I got friends and I got love around me, I got people, the people who love me.' I'm living on a high note, I'm above the clouds. I'm just so grateful. I must be the happiest old girl in the world. Yes, indeed.[17]
Staples at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas (2014)
In January 2017, Staples was featured as a guest vocalist on "I Give You Power", a single from Arcade Fire benefiting the American Civil Liberties Union.[18] In February 2017, Staples appeared on NPR's Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me! in the "Not My Job" segment, answering questions about the rock band The Shaggs. In April 2017, "Let Me Out", a single from the fifth studio album by Gorillaz, Humanz, was released, featuring Staples and rapper Pusha T.[19]
Staples's sixteenth album If All I Was Was Black was released on November 17, 2017. The record was again produced by Jeff Tweedy and contains all original songs cowritten by Mavis and Tweedy. Following the release, Staples toured with Bob Dylan. She also appeared on the 2017/18 Hootenanny. In 2018, she sang on Hozier's single "Nina Cried Power".
In May 2019, Staples celebrated her 80th birthday with a concert at the Apollo Theater, 63 years after first appearing at the theater as a teenager with her family band, the Staple Singers, in 1956. The show, which featured special guest artists, including David Byrne and Norah Jones, is one of a series of collaborative concerts she staged in May to commemorate her 80th birthday.[20] She also performed at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival.
In June 2020, Staples collaborated with Run the Jewels on the track "Pulling the Pin" from their studio album RTJ4.
In 2022, Staples released Carry Me Home, a collaboration with Levon Helm, recorded at Helm's Midnight Ramble in 2011.
Mavis!, the first feature documentary about Staples and the Staple Singers, directed by Jessica Edwards, had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2015.[24]Mavis! screened in theaters and was broadcast on HBO in February 2016. In the same year, the documentary won a Peabody Award.
On June 15, 2019, Staples appeared as the featured musical guest on the CBS This Morning "Saturday Sessions" segment, where she played songs from her We Get By.[25]
Staples's performances with the Staple Singers and with Mahalia Jackson at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival are a highlight of the 2021 music documentary Summer of Soul.[26]
Staples was briefly married to Spencer Leak in 1964; they divorced when Staples would not end her music career to stay home.[28][29] She has no children.[30] In the 2015 documentary Mavis! she reveals that Bob Dylan once proposed to her, and she turned him down.[31]
Staples was named No. 56 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2008 list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.[35]
On February 13, 2011, Staples won her first Grammy award in the category for Best Americana Album for You Are Not Alone. In her acceptance speech, a shocked and crying Staples said, "This has been a long time coming".[36]
On May 6, 2012, Staples was awarded an honorary doctorate, and performed "I'll Take You There" with current and graduating students at Columbia College Chicago's 2012 Commencement Exercise in Chicago, Illinois, at the historic Chicago Theatre.
Staples was recognized as a 2016 Kennedy Center Honoree at the 39th annual gala event held in Washington, D.C.[37]
On November 6, 2021, Staples was inducted as a Laureate at the 57th Laureate Convocation of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois, and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois.[38]
In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Staples at No. 46 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[39]
