FILTER ALBUMS
A new hope
Mavis continues setting the world to rights with one of the best albums of her triumphant second act.
By David Hutcheon.
Graham Tolbert
“Staples’ work is incomplete as long as the world continues to promote leaders too dumb to understand the message.”
Mavis Staples
★★★★★
Sad And Beautiful World
ANTI-. CD/DL/LP
IN A CAREER that began 75 years ago, pre-dating even Alan Freed’s adoption of the phrase ‘rock’n’roll’, Mavis Staples must have thought she’d seen just about everything; one of the most recognisable voices of the United States’ struggle for civil rights, she continued singing on the side of the righteous as the search for equality dragged on. Now 86, she should be taking it easy, assured her wars have been won. Yet, here we are in 2025, and the last member standing of The Staple Singers is dusting off her old friend Curtis Mayfield’s We Got To Have Peace, her work incomplete as long as the world continues to promote leaders too dumb to understand the message.
Staples’ solo career took a while to get going: two albums for Volt while the family group was signed to Stax were followed by irregular releases, overseen by Mayfield, Jerry Wexler or Prince, but it wasn’t until 2004 that Have A Little Faith ignited the second act. Having paid for the recordings herself, she used countless rejections as fuel until being picked up by the Chicago blues specialist Alligator Records. Three years later and signed to Anti-, We’ll Never Turn Back set the template for the next two decades: Staples; a trusty lieutenant – Ry Cooder, initially – marshalling the material and musicians; songs, whether new, recent or traditional, that she could imbue with undiminished authority.