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Mavis Staples LIve: Hope at the Hideout

It is truly a wonder to see Mavis Staples still have so much fire.

At age 69, Staples has seen a lot. As a member of the R&B group (and family) The Staple Singers, she was a member of the civil rights movements in the 1960s, and their songs were played at rallies and functions held by Martin Luther King, Jr. She has seen the trials blacks have gone through in her lifetime, and her music since has been a reaction to that.

As of late, Staples herself has released some of her strongest material, including last year’s We’ll Never Turn Back. The album was a down-and-dirty look at the American civil rights movement, and it was fascinating to hear what she saw.

Now Staples has released a live album, recorded on June 23 at The Hideout in Chicago. The album is a perfect career run-through, running from the first song her father, Pops Staples, ever taught her, right through “We’ll Never Turn Back”.

It’s a raw, emotional retrospective, but at the same time, she is too vital to simply be looking back. The songs are just as relevant today as they were when they were recorded, and Staples knows that. A song such as “Freedom Highway,” recorded with her family in the 1960s, can still get a crowd riled up.

Then there are the stories, which she has plenty of. If her music shows society’s injustices to blacks, her stories are a punch in the face. They are undiluted, and none are more affecting than her grandmother explaining to Mavis about the colored drinking fountains. There is no romanticizing any of it, and Staples doesn’t try to. These are the struggles, and to a crowd that small, the audience can really feel her emotion.

Still, the album is about having joy for a little while, or at least, as she says, “for the next six months or so” (inauguration perhaps?).

Staples wails and rips through the whole show, and while her beautiful voice may have gotten a bit huskier over the years, it still is just as powerful. After all, she is 69, and her energy trumps any other act her age, and even most of the younger ones.

It is a fascinating document, and the final track, “I’ll Take You There,” sums it up. With the audience singing back to her, Staples sounds in her element. She is not the diva that needs a lot of fancy things and a big band (in fact, her band is a guitar, bass, drums, and backup singers; sparse by any measure). She is just as at home with 150 people as she is with any crowd.

She is with the people, the ones she has sung directly to for years.

The price scale: I rate albums more or less by price. Since a fair price for a CD at a store such as Best Buy is around $12.99, Mavis Staples’ Live: Hope at the Hideout, I say, stands at a value of $12.00/$12.99.