Mavis Staples, the woman to whom a young Bob Dylan proposed marriage when they met at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival and whose voice he has described as his “favourite voice”. Mavis Staples, who announced her retirement in 2023 and then realised she still had “work” to do, even after more than 75 years on the road. Mavis Staples, sole survivor of the Staple Singers, founded by Roebuck “Pops” Staples, a friend of Martin Luther King Jr who committed his family to the civil rights struggle and toured throughout the Jim Crow south – the whole family was once arrested in Memphis after Pops was taunted and attacked. The battles she and her confrères fought with joy in the hearts were believed won, but we now know they were not. There is indeed “work to do” and as Bonnie Raitt (among those who contribute background vocals) told her: “It’s what we’re supposed to be here to do. We were given this calling.”
The much-garlanded Staples is a bridge between now and then, and Sad and Beautiful World, her first album since 2019’s We Get By, shows her to be as relevant and contemporary as ever; a timeless figure who – like Prince, another of her admirers – needs only one name and whose voice is still instantly recognisable. It’s grittier and grainier now of course – she’s 86! – but still so expressive. Aged, like a fine wine, and expressing the wisdom of the ages, it speaks eloquently of the trials and tribulations of our world. The late Mark Linkous would surely be thrilled at Staples’ treatment of the song that provides the album’s title track.
The textures of the album are glorious, punchy horns on the one hand and delicately picked guitars on the other. There is light and air; the music breathes. Of the ten tracks, only one is new. “Human Mind” was written for Staples by Hozier and Allison Russell (dial up their great singalong on “The Weight” at the Newport Folk Festival!), a song decrying man’s capacity for destruction on the one hand but, on the other, celebrating the wonder of humanity: “God bless the human mind / Who would dream the sweet/ Even in these days I find / This far down the line / I find good in us sometimes.” She breathes new life into “Satisfied Mind”, Red Hayes’ much-covered country classic, and Curtis Mayfield’s “We Got to Have Peace”. As for Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”, it’s irresistible. Less bitterly ironic than the original inevitably but no less effective. And as the Democrats gave Trump a bloody nose in Tuesday’s elections, it seems we are indeed looking through that crack “where the light gets in”.
Tell them, Mavis, tell them. Sing on, sister. Sing out.
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