Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples is an American singer known for her work in R&B, soul, and gospel and a civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band, "The Staple Singers," of which she is the last surviving member. While in the group, she recorded the hit singles "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again". In 1969, Staples released her self-titled debut solo album.

Staples continued to release solo albums throughout the following decades and collaborated with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Prince, Arcade Fire, Nona Hendryx, Ry Cooder, and David Byrne. Her eighth studio album, "You Are Not Alone," earned critical acclaim and became her first album as a soloist to reach number one on a Billboard chart, peaking atop the Top Gospel Albums chart. It also earned Staples her first Grammy Award win.

While in "The Staple Singers," Staples' voice and her father's, Roebuck "Pops" Staples, songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staples evolved from enormously popular gospel singers to become the most spectacular and influential spirtuality-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 pop hits with positive messages, including Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and a version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth."

Staples is the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has won three Grammy Awards, including one for Album of the Year as a featured artist on "We Are" by Jon Batiste. Named one of the 100 Greatest Singers of all Time by Rolling Stone; Staples was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame as a member of The Staple Singers. Additionally, she was made a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2016. The following year, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame as a soloist. In 2019, she received the inaugural Rock Hall Honors Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a soloist.