So, I wrote earlier about Mavis Staples's sparkling performance at the opening of Huntsville's new Orion Amphitheater in May. It's good to see that Staples is still going strong at 82, touring widely, and featured in a glowing profile by Pulitzer Prize winning author David Remnick in this week's (July 4, 2022) issue of The New Yorker, where Remnick has served as editor since 1998.
Since Staples has been performing first with her family, as the Staple Singers, when she was just a child, and then later as a solo artist, as her family members died, the article cuts a broad swath through modern American music, from the blues, to gospel, rhythm and blues, rock, and what we now call Americana. Remnick, as we have come to expect, provides an intriguing, succinct picture of the period and Staples's important position in it, with several amusing anecdotes along the way, like this one:
Dylan arrived in New York in January, 1961, when he was nineteen. As he was building his reputation on the folk scene in Greenwich Village, he ran into the Staple Singers at a music festival in the city, and an acquaintance introduced them. "Bob said, 'I know the Staple Singers!'" Staples recalled. "He said, 'Pops, he has a velvety voice, but Mavis gets rough sometimes.' And then he quoted that verse in 'Sit Down Servant.'"
"I didn't know no white boy knew our stuff!" Pops said.
As the sixties wore on, the Staple Singers broadened their repertoire. Pops, who was in equal measure idealistic and shrewd, saw a growing appetite, among white listeners as well as Black, for his message songs. He even had the group record some of Dylan's songs, including "Masters of War" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Dylan developed what Staples calls a case of "puppy love." On a cafeteria line before a performance, Dylan turned to Pops and said, "Pops, I want to marry Mavis."
"Well, don't you tell me, tell Mavis," Pops said.
Staples delights in talking about it: "He was a cute little boy, little blue eyes, curly hair. He and Pervis got to be tight. They'd sit out on the stoop, drink wine."
She describes their relationship as "courting," with some "smooching" here and there. But, when I asked if they almost got married, she smiled and said, "Nobody almost gets married."
Dylan arrived in New York in January, 1961, when he was nineteen. As he was building his reputation on the folk scene in Greenwich Village, he ran into the Staple Singers at a music festival in the city, and an acquaintance introduced them. "Bob said, 'I know the Staple Singers!'" Staples recalled. "He said, 'Pops, he has a velvety voice, but Mavis gets rough sometimes.' And then he quoted that verse in 'Sit Down Servant.'"
"I didn't know no white boy knew our stuff!" Pops said.
As the sixties wore on, the Staple Singers broadened their repertoire. Pops, who was in equal measure idealistic and shrewd, saw a growing appetite, among white listeners as well as Black, for his message songs. He even had the group record some of Dylan's songs, including "Masters of War" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Dylan developed what Staples calls a case of "puppy love." On a cafeteria line before a performance, Dylan turned to Pops and said, "Pops, I want to marry Mavis."
"Well, don't you tell me, tell Mavis," Pops said.
Staples delights in talking about it: "He was a cute little boy, little blue eyes, curly hair. He and Pervis got to be tight. They'd sit out on the stoop, drink wine."
She describes their relationship as "courting," with some "smooching" here and there. But, when I asked if they almost got married, she smiled and said, "Nobody almost gets married."
After all she has been through, all her immediate family now gone, at 82, Staples asked God why she was still alive. "The only reason I could see is to sing my songs," she said. And so, thank God, she does!
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