Soul from the south side (Mavis Staples)

Soul from the south side (Mavis Staples)
September 12, 2010
By Mike Devlin
Times Colonist

For Mavis Staples, there really is nothing like sweet home Chicago.

The 71-year-old soul legend lives in Hyde Park, on the south side of Chicago, in a stately home on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It is a comfortable, well-earned existence, one that stands in sharp contrast to her youth, portions of which were spent on the city's more impoverished west side.

Staples, she of the unfailingly positive outlook, loved living "where all the good blues clubs were."

"As kids, we'd sneak up to 12th Street and peek in on the blues clubs where Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf were.

"We didn't realize what we were doing, but we liked the sound."

The sound of Chicago blues greatly informed the music she made during her 40 years with the Staple Singers, the family band led by her late father, Roebuck (Pops) Staples.

Mavis, the youngest of three sisters in the group, was the immediate standout, a beautiful singer with a deep, soulful voice that helped make them one of the most influential acts of the 1960s.

During the early years, the Staple Singers were primarily a gospel group, with influences that included Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers (who, like the Staple Singers, have since been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame).

But as their reputation began to rise, Pops and his children began incorporating folk and blues into their repertoire. That led them to the protest movement of the late 1960s and friendships with key figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Dylan (who asked for Mavis's hand in marriage, but was turned down).

When it came to performing with the Staple Singers, an impressionable Mavis took her cue from her idol, Howlin' Wolf, and his contemporaries, in addition to soul singers such as James Brown.

It didn't take long for her famous father, who had played guitar with everyone from Robert Johnson to Son House, to intervene, she recalled.

"I used to jump across the stage, copying some other kids I saw. And Pops asked me one day, 'Mavis, what are you doing?' I said, 'I'm singing, Daddy.' And he said, 'Listen, you don't need no gimmicks. You're singing God's music, and if you sing from your heart you will reach the people. What comes from the heart reaches the heart. Be sincere.' I've never forgotten that."

Staples is back Sept. 14 with a new solo outing, You Are Not Alone, which she recorded with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. During their first sit-down, at a Hyde Park restaurant on Chicago's south side, Staples was surprised to learn that her fellow Chicagoan was utterly enamoured with the Staple Singers.

"We bonded. He was so soft-spoken. He let me into his life, and I let him into my life. I realized he was a family man, a Christian person, and that he loved Pops just about as much as I loved Pops."

However, once they retreated to Wilco's Loft studio to begin work on the recording, with much of Wilco in tow, Staples noticed that Tweedy's easygoing nature had been replaced by the habits of a stern taskmaster not unlike her father. "It was like Jekyll and Hyde," Staples said, unable to control her laughter. "He governed that session."

Tweedy had a dozen songs for Staples to choose from, eight of which made the final cut. She was surprised at how well-suited she was to the songs that Tweedy had chosen, especially because they had only just met. It wasn't until later that she learned Tweedy had the Staple Singers' discography on his iPod.

"He seemed to know me and he seemed to know where to take me. Each song fit me like a glove. He even had some songs that were older than me!"

He took Staples back to her childhood, both in terms of content and process. During the recording of Wonderful Saviour, a traditional once covered by the Staple Singers, he suggested that she sing the song a capella, the way Pops made her do it back in the day.

"Tweedy had this idea," she said with mock disgust, "to sing that in a stairwell. It was cold out there. I said, 'It's below zero in Chicago, and you know it's cold in that stairwell.' I told him I wasn't going to do it. And he said, 'Mavis, come on now. Somebody get Mavis a coat and a scarf and some gloves, and Mavis, you go on.' So there Mavis went, out in that stairwell."

He approached Staples somewhat sheepishly at one point, notebook in hand. He confessed to Staples that he had a song title, You Are Not Alone, but no lyrics. What he did know was that it was a song he wanted her to sing. "I said, 'Write it, Tweedy, write it!' "

The next day he had both a finished song and a title for her album. The Tweedy original, one of two he wrote for Staples, is not unlike the work of a gospel great, Staples said adoringly.

"I think it's the most beautiful song. And with what's going on in the world today, people need to hear that message. We're living in trying times. People don't know where their rent is coming from, and they are losing their jobs, so they need to be inspired. That song is so comforting.

"I could sing it because I've been there. I know what it's like to fall down and be able to get up."