Episode 1026 - Mavis Staples
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast WTF.
Marc:I'm still in Burlington, Vermont.
Marc:Theoretically, I would have gotten home yesterday if you're listening to this Monday, but I'm here on Saturday doing this.
Marc:I don't know why I've decided to do that time, fuck with time thing with you to tell you exactly the process.
Marc:But I think it's kind of interesting.
Marc:Like, you know, God forbid I maybe, you know, all of a sudden this afternoon in Burlington decide, hey, you know, maybe I'm going to go off the grid.
Marc:Maybe I'm going to relapse on alcohol and just live my life in this small park that's here in Burlington that seems to accommodate people who have given up their life.
Marc:Perhaps maybe that'll happen.
Marc:And then you'll have this intro and you'll be listening to it Monday and think everything's fine.
Marc:And then like, where's Mark?
Marc:So now you kind of know, God forbid, I don't think it's going to happen.
Marc:But if I'm not around Thursday, somebody checked the park in Burlington.
Marc:It seemed like a comfortable place to kind of casually spend the rest of your life outdoors.
Marc:Big show today.
Marc:It's very exciting, actually.
Marc:I talked to Mavis Staples of the Staples family.
Marc:She's obviously a solo artist, but was with the Staples Singers forever, but has done much of her own work and is a revered and amazing soul singer.
Marc:And she's here.
Marc:Some of you know the story.
Marc:I met her.
Marc:I ran into her in England on a radio show, and I just loved her, and she loved me, I believe, and she came over, and it was quite an amazing conversation.
Marc:She is still going strong, and I don't want to say she's old, but she's no youngster, but her clarity is amazing.
Marc:Her stories are amazing.
Marc:Her heart is amazing.
Marc:And and it's it's look forward to it.
Marc:It's it's literally going to happen in a matter of minutes, depending on the choices you make around what I'm saying now or how long I talk.
Marc:If you're locked in, I don't know.
Marc:There is some stuff I want to talk about.
Marc:I'll tell you about my experience in Burlington.
Marc:But first, I want to tell you about this documentary I saw, because I don't know how long you've been listening.
Marc:But years ago, I had Harry Dean Stanton on.
Marc:It was not a shining moment for me.
Marc:I don't think I behaved properly around the fact that the guy was almost 100 years old.
Marc:And I didn't feel like I really got through to him.
Marc:I mean, I did.
Marc:But I was insecure in the moment.
Marc:And I had the woman who directed the documentary.
Marc:on with uh the harry dean stanton interview uh her name is sophie huber and she recently got in touch with me and she told me she had done this documentary she had made a documentary about blue note records now as those of you know have been listening i've been sort of going down a jazz rabbit hole a bit and it's only getting deeper and it's i'm getting more into it i'm understanding more about it i just spent uh
Marc:a couple hours with Ben Sidron in Madison when I was there.
Marc:He's been on the show, jazz historian, and also an amazing jazz pianist.
Marc:And we sat around listening to records.
Marc:He turned me on to some new stuff, but he's got a whole wall of original Blue Note records, and I find the universe pretty fascinating.
Marc:So out of nowhere...
Marc:Sophie emails me and she's like, do you want to check out this doc?
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah, I do.
Marc:And it's, it's amazing.
Marc:It puts, it puts the entire jazz, like a whole swath of American jazz history into a very unique perspective in terms of where it came from.
Marc:The founders of blue note, the artists that were involved, there was like recording done, uh,
Marc:the sound engineer at the original blue note.
Marc:He was like just a dude, but he didn't have a studio and they were recording some of those early blue note records in his parents' house in the living room.
Marc:He built a booth in his parents' living room and fucking Miles Davis would go record in this guy's parents' living room.
Marc:so i i'm no pioneer the the garage living room bedroom recording situation has has been happening for decades apparently because i'm reading a book about les paul right now too les paul and leo fender um the birth of loud about the creating of the first solid body electric guitar and it turns out fucking les paul
Marc:Whether or not he designed the Les Paul guitar, before that, when he was sort of obsessed with recording, had a studio set up in his garage of his bungalow in Hollywood in the 40s, and he was experimenting with sound out there with all these devices and stuff, and Bing Crosby would come by, all these people would come by, but I felt kindred spirits, you know what I mean?
Marc:I'm not at the cutting edge of anything, really.
Marc:Other people have done...
Marc:I mean, arguably bigger things in their garage or parents' living rooms than I've done.
Marc:Okay, so that guy had Miles Davis in his parents' living room.
Marc:I did have President Obama in my garage, but did we make amazing sounds?
Marc:Did we make amazing jazz?
Marc:Did we riff?
Marc:Did we take it places?
Marc:Kind of, but all right, maybe I'm on the same level.
Marc:I'll take it.
Marc:Thank you for giving it to me, me.
Marc:So...
Marc:The documentary is called Blue Note Records Beyond the Notes.
Marc:And I tell you, man, it just put the whole thing into context, the social element of it, the societal element of it, what that jazz, what the evolution of jazz out of swing into bop, into hard bop, into these different definitions, what these guys were really pushing towards, what the element of improvisational freedom really means.
Marc:It kind of really got at the heart of,
Marc:of the art of improvisation, where and why and what propels it.
Marc:And it also integrates the sort of history of Blue Note into early hip hop and to how it influenced that.
Marc:And then made a fairly deep argument that hip hop is the natural sort of extension of
Marc:the, the impetus of, of jazz improvisation and of, of jazz in general.
Marc:And then I got into, then I started listening to flying Lotus yesterday, walking around, um, Burlington.
Marc:I'm like, cause Anderson pack talked about him and the, there's a Camasi connection.
Marc:There's a Kendrick connection and you know, it's hip hop's not really my world, but I'm pretty dug into the jazz trip.
Marc:So now I'm walking around listening to flying Lotus in with that, uh,
Marc:set of glasses on or that perspective.
Marc:And I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I get it.
Marc:This is what, this does make sense.
Marc:But the doc is great.
Marc:Apparently the doc is played on the festival circuit and the filmmakers are now self-releasing it.
Marc:But I want to tell you now when and where the upcoming screenings are happening.
Marc:It opens at the Metrograph in New York City this Friday, June 14th.
Marc:And then it's opening in Los Angeles at the Lamley Santa Monica on June 28th.
Marc:And I'll try to keep you posted about more screening dates because I think you'll like this movie.
Marc:If I'm speaking to you, you know who you are.
Marc:So...
Marc:I've been in Burlington for a few days, and we're assuming I'm home now.
Marc:I've established that with you.
Marc:That's the time frame.
Marc:That's the arc.
Marc:And it's nice, man.
Marc:I haven't been up here in a long time.
Marc:And last time I was up here, I was at the Flynn Theater, and now I'm doing this club, what is it, the Vermont Comedy Club?
Marc:And I was trying to sort of go back in my mind to other times that I'd been to Burlington.
Marc:There used to be a gig up here.
Marc:It was called The Front.
Marc:It was a rock club.
Marc:I remember doing a show there with David Cross.
Marc:It's like a real memory for me because we drove up from Boston to do this one-nighter.
Marc:We probably had gone to Killington to do a gig there at the ski slopes called Mother Shapiro's.
Marc:And then there was another one, but whatever.
Marc:But I remember the front because I remember Dave in this large rock club was on stage and he was tanking hard.
Marc:And I remember standing at the side of the stage, giving him the wrap up sign and him being mad about that.
Marc:He was mad about it because whatever was important to me was not important to Dave, and that's why Dave's Dave, and that's why I'm me.
Marc:But I was curious when I got up here where it was, where it was at, and it turns out the place was right next to where I am.
Marc:It's right next, it's a ski store now, and apparently I did a search on Google, wherever you search,
Marc:And I was trying to find it and it turns out that Phish sort of was it was sort of one of their home bases.
Marc:They did like 50 shows there.
Marc:So even though a lot of you want me to interview Trey and even though I've not ever listened to one Phish record, I have shared the stage.
Marc:with uh with the fellas you know we we riffed out in the same venue back in the day now it's a ski store so I don't know I don't know what that does for my memories it doesn't matter but I have been getting out I have been walking around I've I had uh I ate twice at this place called hen of the wood which is an amazing restaurant my buddy Jimmy came up from New Hampshire took a break from like sitting alone by himself in the woods and uh
Marc:came up to hang out and we're having a nice time.
Marc:We're just kind of getting started about to walk the trails and, you know, in clothes that weren't really walkable, but this was, this was a great moment of, you know, kind of, I couldn't tell it's some sort of entitlement.
Marc:But we're about to start up the hill and there's a woman there who looked like she was about to start up the hill and she was holding her phone and she looked at us and there was a fork in the trail.
Marc:There was a fork in the trail and she looked at us and she goes, which way are you going?
Marc:And we're like, I don't know.
Marc:I guess we'll go over that way.
Marc:She's like, oh, good, because I'm about to start a conference call.
Marc:And it's like, what the fuck?
Marc:Like, oh, I'm sorry.
Marc:Are we in your fucking office?
Marc:Jesus Christ, man.
Marc:It was a good moment.
Marc:But like part of me, because maybe because I'm a Libra, I later, I don't even know why I said that.
Marc:But later I thought like, well, maybe she didn't want to bother our hike.
Marc:Maybe she didn't want us to feel intruded upon while she's yelling at her, you know, into a phone just to be heard on a conference call in the middle of the woods.
Marc:But I'd like to stick with the other way.
Marc:That she thought like, you know, this was her space to do her work and not a public, beautiful outdoor place.
Marc:But that was nice.
Marc:I walked around.
Marc:I got some woods and and I, you know, with sort of a mild sort of sub panic about about deer ticks and Lyme disease.
Marc:And because I just got back right now, just reminded me, apparently I have to check my body for ticks.
Marc:And from what I understand, I got to really check it for ticks.
Marc:Like I got to.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't roll around in the dirt, but apparently these ticks are crafty.
Marc:So I'm going to be going in going to be going to be taking a good look at some stuff that I probably don't look at that intensely on a day to day basis.
Marc:So there, you're all caught up.
Marc:You feel better?
Marc:So Mavis Staples, a legend, a wonderful woman, and a great artist, has a new album out, We Get By, it's called.
Marc:It's available now wherever you get music.
Marc:She worked with Ben Harper on this, who I also am a big fan of, and I hope you enjoy this time I spent with Mavis Staples.
Guest:How often do you come out here?
Marc:Do you like it out here?
Guest:I come, I love it, but I love it, you know, just for coming out here and getting back, back to Chicago.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but I, I come maybe twice a year.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Twice a year.
Guest:And if I got a new record, I'll come and hang with the band.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, rather than bringing them all to Chicago.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But did you record it out here?
Marc:You didn't record it out here, did you?
Guest:We recorded it out here.
Guest:This last album.
Marc:You did?
Marc:I recorded it out here, yeah.
Marc:I talked to Ben.
Guest:Hensley.
Guest:Hensley Studio.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Is that in Hollywood?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, it is?
Marc:It's in Hollywood.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to, you know, Ben Harper did this one, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've had him in here.
Marc:I had him in here with Charlie Musselwhite.
Guest:Is that right?
Marc:They were both in here.
Marc:Oh, I know that was awesome.
Marc:Playing the blues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's a smart guy.
Marc:I like the way the record sounds.
Marc:It's very, you know, how does that work with you?
Marc:Because you've worked with so many producers.
Marc:Do they just call you up and go like, I wrote you a bunch of songs, Mavis.
Guest:No, well, what Ben, Ben had written me one song, Love and Trust.
Guest:And that song, I ran into him again.
Guest:We run into each other on the road.
Guest:And I ran into him, I said, Ben, that love and trust, man, every time we sing that song, the audience goes woof, woof, woof, crazy.
Guest:And I said, you got to write me another song.
Guest:He said, well, Mavis, how about I write you...
Guest:maybe 10 or 11 songs.
Guest:I said, oh, that would be great.
Guest:He said, yeah, we could do an album together.
Guest:I said, oh, man, that would be awesome.
Guest:And that's how this got started.
Guest:And, uh, I got to talking to Andy Cochran for my label, Anti Records.
Guest:And, uh,
Marc:You're still on the Anti Records?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah, I'm still there.
Guest:I ain't going nowhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I ain't got time to go nowhere else now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
Guest:But Andy, Anti has really been good for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I was at a point when right after Pops passed,
Guest:I didn't know what I was going to do.
Guest:And then I took a year off, period.
Guest:I told Mike Cabos, don't book me for a year because my sister Cleady was getting sick and I didn't know what it was.
Guest:I didn't know what was going on.
Guest:And I knew it was this dementia stuff, but I didn't know.
Guest:I said, I'm going to stay home and see about Cleady.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So for a year, I didn't work at all, but then after I got everything, I got a good home care caregiver, and then I wanted to work again.
Guest:And Mike Kappas, he said, Mavis, you need a record, and you're gonna need, you know, you can't just, you haven't been out there for a while.
Guest:So I couldn't find anyone to take me.
Guest:No one was, I called.
Marc:You mean a label?
Guest:I called all the labels, yeah.
Guest:I called every label, because you know, staple singers, we've been on just about every label out there.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But what I wasn't thinking, you know, when they would tell me no, and I got so disgusted, I said, nobody is taking me.
Guest:I was determined.
Guest:I went to the bank, got my money.
Guest:I said, I'm going to make me a record.
Guest:And you just did it?
Guest:I did it, I did it.
Guest:And I made that record.
Marc:Which one, Living on a High Note?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Have a Little Faith.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Have a Little Faith.
Marc:But that was on Alligator Records?
Marc:That's why it was on Alligator.
Marc:That's a great record.
Guest:Yeah, it's a good record.
Guest:I mean, I paid everybody to do this record for me, with me.
Guest:Then, like, the same thing.
Guest:I started trying to shop it.
Guest:Nobody would take it.
Guest:And at the last minute, just as I was about to start selling it from the trunk of the car, Alligator came in.
Guest:And I was so grateful.
Guest:you know yeah uh and and uh after about a year with alligator something went down that um andy could get me anti so they got me from and i've been with them ever since you know so oh so that was an in-house thing you didn't go looking for them alligator just switched you over no alligator
Guest:Oh yeah, it was In-N-House thing.
Guest:That's what you called it.
Guest:They let me go on to Anti Records.
Marc:And that's the one you did a bunch of covers of hip people like Nico Case and Nick Cave and that dude M. Ward produced it.
Guest:Living on a High Note.
Guest:That's that one.
Guest:I told him, I said, I want some people that are young.
Guest:I want some new stuff.
Guest:Oh, Benjamin Booker.
Guest:Benjamin Booker.
Guest:He's good.
Guest:Valerie June.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ben was on there.
Guest:The Head and the Hearts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ben Hopper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's Love and Trust.
Guest:That's where that came from.
Guest:That's where Love and Trust.
Guest:Yeah, I was looking for, and one of the little girls from the Head & Heart, she was so young, and she was so nervous, because I told them, I said, give them my phone number if they want to call me.
Guest:She was nervous to sing with you, to write with you?
Guest:She wanted to know, Ms.
Guest:Staples, what are you looking for?
Guest:in a song.
Guest:I said, well, I just want a good song, good lyrics.
Guest:I said, do you know me?
Guest:She said, oh, yes, ma'am.
Guest:And I remember this little girl.
Guest:Her name was Chastity.
Guest:I said, well, Chasity, just listen to some of the stuff that I've done.
Guest:I just wanted something new, you know, but it could still be in the vein that I've been singing about freedom, you know.
Marc:So was it If It's a Light?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:If it's a light.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If it's a light.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the name of the song.
Guest:And I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:It came out really, really nice.
Marc:Well, it's like because I was listening to this one, you know, because like there there's definitely a sound like, you know, you're going to sing the way you sing.
Marc:But all these these producers bring a sound.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Marc:And it's sort of interesting to me, you know, you listen to Ben.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And Ben's got sort of a pretty deep blues groove.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, and it's pretty spare.
Marc:And then I listened to that one you did with Ry Cooter.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and he's like, he's interesting because, you know, he's also got a blues groove, but it's a little more international.
Marc:It's a little more weird.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But that one you did on your own on Alligator, I mean, you co-produced that thing, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that thing's like, that's more like the one with Ben, right?
Marc:Right, it is.
Guest:It's just stripped down.
Guest:Well, see, and that's what I hear in Ben.
Guest:See, that one, Have a Little Faith, that was the sound of the Staples Singers.
Guest:And I, you know, I told Ben, I said, Ben, I feel like I'm in that room.
Guest:I'm singing with my family.
Guest:Your songs.
Guest:See, I had a little room that I would record in.
Guest:I called it the prayer room.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:I said, in that prayer room, I hear, man, it sounds like I'm singing with the family again.
Guest:You know, because of the way he writes.
Guest:His lyrics are beautiful, but his melodies are totally different.
Guest:Well, see, I was with Tweety.
Marc:Yeah, three records you did with Jeff.
Guest:Jeff Tweety, yeah.
Marc:And he's a heady guy, but he knows how to put together a nice American music.
Guest:Oh, man, oh, man.
Guest:Beautiful, beautiful.
Guest:I have been so blessed.
Marc:Well, what do you think the difference is between Ben and Jeff?
Guest:It's just that the...
Guest:not attitude, it's the feeling.
Guest:The feeling, the feeling.
Guest:Ben is a blues man, really.
Guest:And I told Ben on a couple of those songs, I said, you got me singing the blues.
Guest:You know that, anyway, anytime, anywhere.
Guest:But that's not too far from gospel.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It's all there.
Guest:I feel like gospel and blues are first cousins.
Guest:So I don't feel bad.
Guest:But I told him, I said, he's been wanting me to do a blues album.
Marc:Totally blues.
Marc:So he snuck it in on you?
Guest:He snuck it in on me.
Guest:And his lyrics, you know, the way he writes.
Guest:And some of those songs you think I'm singing to a man.
Guest:And I said, but it's all right.
Guest:It's all right because I am grown.
Guest:I'm a woman.
Guest:I've been there.
Guest:But I don't want to fool my fans.
Guest:And Ben said, maybe anything you sing is going to be all right with your fans.
Marc:Anything.
Marc:Well, who do you usually feel you're in relationship when you're singing?
Marc:With God?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:God is my man.
Guest:God is my man.
Guest:80?
Guest:I don't have no boyfriend.
Marc:That ship has sailed.
Guest:But now, if a dude come along, you know, they always come, and they're older guys.
Guest:And I just tell them, oh, no, you're too young for me.
Marc:You're too young for me.
Marc:Well, older at this point would be older, older.
Marc:Older, older.
Guest:I tell you.
Guest:I tell you.
Guest:Bob Dylan is even too old.
Marc:You know, but... Well, I mean, that's interesting to me, too.
Marc:But we'll come back.
Marc:Let's go back around because, like, you know, I was listening to some of the Staples stuff.
Marc:I mean, the amazing thing about those records, they were so stripped down.
Marc:The production was very straight ahead.
Marc:And, you know, it was all, like, driven by... Pops had that vibrato sound that was uniquely his.
Marc:And he had those beautiful little riffs he'd do.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But you've done a lot of different sounds, because I noticed in your history, even when you were playing with the family and you started doing solo stuff, you had guys like Steve Cropper.
Marc:Was that when the whole family was at Stax, that you guys started, that you did those records with Steve Cropper?
Guest:Oh yes, yes.
Guest:Steve produced the very first record.
Guest:on the Staple Singers out of Stacks.
Guest:He produced it first.
Guest:And from there we went to Muscle Shoals.
Marc:But you did your solo with him too, right?
Guest:I did.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Because it seemed like a shift because I listened to some of the real old stuff, like Uncloudy Day and the gospel stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it was just interesting that there were these minor shifts.
Marc:And it seemed like at that point when you guys were really doing more R&B that, you know, what Cropper was trying to make a Mavis record, we was going to get an R&B single out of you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, they had the hooks, they were tight, you know.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:But when you started, what was that world like?
Marc:Because I know other people come out of there, what first comes to mind is Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers.
Marc:But when you guys were touring as a family, when you started doing that,
Marc:It was a whole circuit, right?
Marc:There was a lot of people doing it, right?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But it was spooky.
Guest:It was very... Sam, they just denied... He had to go... We were at the last gospel program that Sam did.
Guest:With the Soulsters?
Guest:With the Soulsters.
Guest:Memphis, Tennessee, at the Mason Temple, Masonic Temple.
Guest:And Sam, he had recorded...
Guest:Wonderful, God is so wonderful.
Guest:Then he come with lovable, my girl, and he changed his name.
Marc:Switched it from God to the girl.
Guest:Man, listen, those old sisters back in the day, they changed.
Guest:stood up, you get out, we know that's you singing them blues.
Guest:They throw their purses, throw anything.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And Sam, I felt so bad, he just put his hands up and he walked off stage.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So after he had the hit record, and he came back and did a gospel gig, the women were like, uh-uh.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You get out, we know that's you singing.
Guest:Well, see,
Guest:I was scared to death singing my songs, House Is Not A Home, and those songs with Steve Kropp.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:I was singing Otis Redding.
Guest:And it was amazing.
Guest:The people didn't bother me.
Guest:But you know what they did?
Guest:The staple singers.
Guest:They jumped on us for doing I'll Take You There.
Guest:And they started, now we know the staple singers singing the devil's music.
Guest:Y'all singing the devil's music.
Guest:Oh, man, we had to do so many interviews.
Guest:I tell the people, look, the devil ain't got no music.
Guest:And we're singing.
Guest:You have to listen to our lyrics.
Guest:We're telling you, I know a place.
Guest:Ain't nobody crying.
Guest:Ain't nobody worried.
Guest:Ain't no smiling faces lying to the races.
Guest:Where could we be taking you but to heaven?
Guest:We talked to them.
Guest:And finally, we were invited back to church.
Guest:They had dismissed us.
Marc:So this is after how long?
Guest:How old do you when you start singing with the Staple Singers?
Guest:I was like 10 years old when we started.
Guest:But before that, we'd sing around the house.
Guest:I was about eight years old.
Marc:But you guys were dug in.
Guest:We were dug in.
Guest:Our first record, I was 13.
Guest:On a cloudy day.
Guest:On V.J.
Guest:Records?
Guest:V.J.
Guest:Records, right.
Guest:Was that mostly a gospel label?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was blues.
Guest:It was all blues.
Guest:Jimmy Reed.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's right, Jimmy Reed.
Guest:Carlton Woods, everybody was on.
Guest:Sweet Home Chicago.
Guest:Sweet Home Chicago.
Guest:Jimmy Reed's the greatest.
Guest:Did you know that guy?
Guest:Yeah, I knew Jimmy Reed.
Guest:And they would have to lock Jimmy Reed in the room because he'd get so drunk.
Guest:He couldn't go to the show.
Guest:So once they got him in the room, they would lock him in and he couldn't get out until showtime.
Guest:Ha ha!
Marc:They're protecting their show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They didn't want any walkouts.
Guest:They didn't want no walkouts.
Marc:Refunds.
Guest:They wanted to hear, guide me running.
Guest:Yeah, guide me hiding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guide me running.
Guest:Hide, hide, run.
Guest:Any way you want, I let it roll.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, he was bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, but you guys aren't doing that circuit.
Marc:You have the VJ record, but it's a gospel record.
Marc:It's a gospel.
Guest:Well, see, Vivian Carter, let me tell you how that came about.
Guest:My Aunt Katie...
Guest:We were rehearsing on the living room floor at home, and Katie lived with us.
Guest:She came through one night, she said, shucks, y'all sound pretty good.
Guest:I believe I want y'all to sing at my church Sunday.
Guest:We sang at in Katie's church.
Guest:Vivian was in the audience.
Guest:And Circle Beyond Broken.
Guest:It was the only song that Pops had taught us all the way through.
Guest:Vivian called the next day and said, Staples, you and them children need to be making records.
Guest:Pops said, no, Vivian.
Guest:I ain't going to let my children make no records because I don't know nothing about them records.
Guest:I don't know how...
Marc:He wasn't a professional musician at the time?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:He had another job?
Guest:He worked at Crane Company, construction work.
Guest:But he wasn't thinking about us being professional.
Guest:None of us thought about professional.
Guest:We were just singing around the house to amuse ourselves.
Guest:And by the time I got 13,
Guest:Pop's called Vivian, he said, okay Vivian, I can let my children sing the record now.
Guest:Because Yvonne, my other sister, she had gone and got this big red book, this business, she learned about it.
Marc:She got a music business book?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, she helped pop.
Guest:You're the youngest?
Guest:I'm the youngest, yeah.
Marc:Okay, so she said, we can do this.
Guest:I read about it.
Guest:Oh, yeah, she read all about it.
Guest:And then he had people like Mahalia Jackson and the Soulsters, Dixon and Birds.
Guest:All of them would tell pops about the record business.
Marc:So it was like a community.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, gospel.
Guest:We'd help each other.
Marc:Mahalia Jackson, huh?
Guest:Oh, Mahalia Jackson.
Guest:She was mine.
Guest:She was my favorite.
Guest:First female voice I heard.
Guest:took me, oh man, and she taught me how to take care of my voice.
Guest:She did?
Marc:Oh, she did.
Marc:What'd she tell you?
Guest:Well, she told me, we were opening, pops came home from work one day, he said, Mavis, guess what?
Guest:We're gonna open for Mahalia Jackson Monday night,
Guest:at Tabernacle Baptist Church.
Guest:And I was so excited.
Guest:I was so excited.
Guest:I would sing all, but the bad part about it was I had to wait the whole weekend.
Guest:It was a Friday.
Guest:Monday night.
Guest:So I would sing, get in the mirror.
Guest:I sing in my head.
Guest:Mama told me, she said, maybe, baby,
Guest:Don't get on her nerve here.
Guest:I said, Mama, I'm not going to get on her nerve.
Guest:Mama had Yvonne and Cleety watching me.
Guest:I was this little skinny girl.
Guest:And just lucky for me, Sister Mahalia Jackson was dressing in the same dressing room.
Guest:She came in already dressed.
Guest:Pops would call her sister Mahalia Jackson.
Guest:So I thought sister was her first name.
Guest:She came in.
Guest:I hit the floor.
Guest:And Yvonne and Khalidi, they didn't even know I was gone.
Guest:I was up there.
Guest:She was so tall, she looked like a giant princess to me.
Guest:And she said, I said, well, hello, Miss Sister Mahalia Jackson.
Guest:And she started laughing.
Guest:She said, well, how are you, baby?
Guest:I said, oh, I'm fine.
Guest:My name is Mavis.
Guest:She said, oh.
Guest:I said, and I sing too.
Guest:She said, oh, well, I want to hear you sing.
Guest:I said, oh, you'll hear me.
Guest:I sing loud.
Guest:Man, got in there, I sang my song, come back.
Guest:She said, you know, you're a good little singer.
Guest:I said, thank you.
Guest:Getting ready, I got my jump rope.
Guest:I was on my way out the door.
Guest:She said, hey, where you going?
Guest:I said, I'm going outside the jump rope.
Guest:Because, you know, us children, we didn't like to hear the preacher.
Guest:We like the choir and the singing, but we get out when the preacher's coming.
Guest:So I had my jump rope.
Guest:She said, you come here.
Guest:She's strapped.
Guest:Felt my neck, felt my chest.
Guest:Put my little training bra off.
Guest:She said, look, you take all this off.
Guest:Don't you know you're damp?
Guest:I said, no, ma'am.
Guest:She said, yes, well, you're damp.
Guest:And you don't go out in the air like that.
Guest:She said, you want to get to be an old lady like me, don't you?
Guest:Sing along time.
Guest:I said, yes, ma'am.
Guest:She said, well, you tell mama to give you one of your brother's T-shirts.
Guest:You take all this stuff off, and you sit down, and you get dry before you go outside.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And today, I bring a dry T-shirt with me.
Guest:They're my brothers.
Guest:But I get dry before I get—I still have my voice.
Guest:Thanks to Sister Mahave Jackson, she taught me that.
Marc:A simple tip.
Guest:A simple tip.
Guest:I tell you.
Guest:And I called my friend, my idol, and my teacher because she started coming to the house.
Guest:Mama and Yvonne, they would fix barbecue every Fourth of July.
Guest:Our backyard would be full of people.
Guest:And from Jesse Jackson, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, everybody come to the stable barbecue.
Guest:Sister Mahady was there.
Guest:Mama invited her.
Guest:She called Mama before she came.
Guest:She said, Sister, you got them bones on?
Guest:Mama said, Oh, yeah, you come on.
Guest:The bones are ready.
Guest:They started like at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning fixing them.
Guest:Mama would make this homemade ice cream, banana, and Sister Mahaley, she would call me, come here, baby.
Guest:And I'd say, yes, ma'am.
Guest:She'd give me her bowl, get me some more of that ice cream.
Guest:I'd say, yes, ma'am, I'll get you some.
Guest:Oh, man, growing up, I had a beautiful, beautiful
Guest:Childhood, you know, people say Michael Jackson, he didn't have no, I had my childhood.
Marc:That sounds great.
Marc:And you were with your family for so many years.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And your family, you know.
Guest:My family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Pops would come in, don't you know Pops tried to help them other companies try to get me, they wanted me to sing the blues, they wanted me to sing what Aretha was singing.
Guest:And Pops said, Maeve, these people are offering you a lot of money.
Guest:Don't you want to go and sing?
Guest:I said, no, daddy.
Guest:I don't want to go sing for them people.
Guest:I don't want to sing that.
Guest:I want to sing with the Staples.
Guest:You know, that was my security.
Guest:I was too chicken to do that.
Marc:But you were doing both, right?
Marc:I mean, you did a few.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:After I was a woman.
Marc:Right.
Marc:When you mean you were a kid, they were trying to get you.
Guest:When they were trying to get me.
Marc:Make some soul hits.
Marc:Some R&B hits.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So you were dug in with the gospel thing and you did that for like, what, a decade?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I mean, like straight up gospel.
Marc:Like, I think what it reminded me of is like when Dylan went electric.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:All the folkies were like, what the hell is happening?
Marc:You know, we're not going to stand for this.
Marc:And it seems like he had a similar experience.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're moving from gospel to what they thought was R&B.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And in my mind, it doesn't seem like that big a jump.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:But there were church people that were like, that's it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:Well, see, what we did, it was easier for the staple singers because we moved to folk song.
Guest:When we started going to...
Guest:New Hampshire to the folk festival.
Marc:Oh, to Newport?
Guest:Newport.
Guest:We started going to Newport.
Guest:We started seeing these flower children.
Guest:We started hearing their music.
Guest:And pops, we talked.
Guest:Daddy said, these people, this music that they sing is not far from gospel.
Guest:It's about love.
Guest:They're singing about love.
Guest:And he said, we can sing that.
Guest:When he heard Dylan, Dylan started singing.
Guest:Pop said, listen, y'all.
Guest:Listen to what that kid is saying.
Guest:He's saying, how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?
Guest:Pops would tell us stories about when he was in Mississippi.
Guest:If a white man started coming down the street on the same side of the street he's on, Pops would have to cross over.
Guest:He couldn't walk.
Guest:He said, we can sing that.
Guest:And literally, you know,
Guest:He knew it, you know, how many roads must a man walk down.
Guest:And so we got home, we got Bob Dylan's album, and we learned blowing in the wind.
Guest:And then we heard something happening here.
Marc:Stephen Stills' song.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:We would hear Pop say, and anything that Pop said we're going to say, we're going to sing it.
Marc:So that's interesting, because you said that too, like in talking about doing a blues record or not doing a blues record, that if you can't attach what's being sung to your experience, you don't find that you're gonna wanna do that.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You can't, I don't, you know,
Guest:The song has to have a certain message in it for me to sing.
Guest:But like you say, I sang Houses Not A Home and those songs with Steve Cropper.
Guest:Then I was ready.
Guest:I was 20-something years old then.
Marc:After your first album?
Guest:My first album.
Guest:That was in 1969.
Guest:In fact, I was 30.
Guest:I had been married.
Guest:I had been divorced.
Guest:I'd been in love.
Guest:You'd been through it.
Guest:I'd been through it, man.
Guest:And you know a singer wants to sing about her life.
Guest:So I have one song I have learned to do without you.
Guest:And man, my husband...
Guest:My brother told me, he said, Mavis, every time Spencer come in the bar, somebody jump up and put a quarter in the jukebox.
Guest:They put, I have learned to live without you.
Guest:And Mavis, you be singing all over there.
Guest:People be looking straight at him.
Guest:I say, well, that's what it was all about.
Guest:I was singing my life.
Guest:What happened in that marriage?
Guest:Oh, I sent him home.
Guest:He wanted me to quit.
Guest:He wanted me to stop singing.
Guest:I said, look, I was singing way before I met you.
Guest:And this singing is my life.
Guest:He jumped up, he up, and I would stay at my sister's house till late.
Guest:Didn't want him to bother me.
Guest:Messing, trying to make love to me or anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Trying to get you pregnant.
Guest:Trying to get me pregnant.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That'll do it.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:We'll get him.
Guest:Stop singing.
Guest:I wasn't having it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not the way he was acting, you know, because I wouldn't stop singing.
Guest:So one night I came home, he was gone.
Guest:I called Pop.
Guest:I said, Pop.
Guest:Spencer is gone.
Guest:He ain't left me.
Guest:Daddy said, Maven, you stay right there.
Guest:I'm coming to get you.
Guest:I said, oh, no.
Guest:No, don't come get me.
Guest:I said, I'm having my locks changed.
Guest:I've already called the locksmith.
Guest:I said, I ain't going nowhere.
Guest:You know, don't you know the next morning he tried to get in that apartment?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wouldn't fit.
Guest:I had a new lock.
Guest:And that was that.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:But then it took me the longest.
Guest:He wouldn't come to court.
Guest:Took me the longest to get the divorce.
Guest:That's why I never got married again.
Guest:I shacked.
Guest:I was shacking after my marriage.
Guest:I was shacking longer than I was married with my next boyfriend, the one I truly loved.
Guest:But I was afraid to get married again.
Guest:Yeah, what do you got to go through that for?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:No need.
Marc:No need.
Marc:You never wanted kids?
No.
Guest:Oh, Lord, I wanted children.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted children.
Guest:That was the only thing that hurt me so bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That I didn't have any kids, you know, because I didn't want to have any out of wedlock.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, while I was married, I would like to have had some children.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this man started acting crazy, you know.
Guest:Spencer.
Guest:Spencer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We went to Japan.
Guest:And I sent...
Marc:The singers, the group went to Japan?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man, we went to Japan in 1964.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:64.
Guest:The Japanese ladies were still wearing those little wooden shoes and the kimonos and still had to work, couldn't walk in their husband's shadow.
Guest:Pops and Purvis had it made.
Guest:Me and Cleety,
Guest:We get off the train, put our luggage down.
Guest:These little ladies come running, running.
Guest:We think they come to greet us.
Guest:They come and get daddy's luggage and Purr's luggage, and they run off with it.
Guest:Me and Clee, they had to take our own luggage.
Guest:But we were there.
Guest:We were over there for a month.
Guest:A month?
Guest:A month.
Guest:It was some kind of government operation.
Guest:Funded thing?
Guest:Funding they were doing.
Guest:For the arts they brought you over.
Guest:For the arts.
Guest:And Pops felt like we could go.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:We stayed a month.
Guest:See the world.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:All over Japan.
Guest:We even learned a Japanese folk song.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Guest:Oh, man.
Marc:And he sang it that night?
Marc:And he sang it in Japanese?
Guest:We sang it in Japanese.
Guest:And every time we started singing it, people...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The crowd goes crazy.
Guest:The crowd went crazy.
Guest:They would go crazy.
Guest:And Pops told the boys, he said, look, wait a minute.
Guest:Mavison wrote this stuff out because I would write it the way they were sounding.
Guest:And we got to know what this song means.
Guest:We don't want to be saying something that we didn't know what.
Guest:And they said, oh, Papa Son, Papa Son, this song, this folk song, the...
Guest:Fishermen asking the seagulls, will there be any fish today?
Guest:And the seagulls say, don't ask me, ask the sea.
Guest:That seems nice.
Guest:It was cool.
Marc:It was cool.
Marc:So Spencer got mad when he went to Japan, was that the point?
Guest:That was the point, that did it.
Guest:Because his father and I were really good friends.
Marc:Spencer's father.
Guest:His father, Mr. Leek.
Guest:And this is the undertaker.
Guest:I married the undertaker.
Guest:I get mad.
Guest:We have an argument.
Guest:I wasn't about to lay down.
Guest:I don't want no embalming leader coming in there.
Guest:And if he got a headache, he wouldn't lay down.
Guest:That's how stupid the... I won't say stupid, but that's how morticians act.
Guest:If they...
Guest:They're afraid?
Guest:Afraid.
Guest:Headache.
Marc:You're afraid they ain't gonna wake up.
Marc:Oh really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's a lot of fear in the house.
Guest:A lot of fear and I ain't gonna have no business marrying that man.
Guest:Oh man.
Marc:Well you live and learn.
Guest:You live and learn.
Guest:You are right now.
Guest:I won't do it again.
Guest:I told Prince.
Guest:Prince, when I told him.
Marc:You did two records with Prince, right?
Guest:Yeah, two records and Prince and my letters
Guest:is in each one of those songs.
Guest:I had to write the press because he wouldn't talk to me.
Guest:He's so shy.
Marc:So you wanted to work with him and you were writing him letters, is that what you mean?
Guest:I would write him legal pad letters, 14, 15 pages at a time.
Guest:And he wrote a song, when I told him I was married, he wrote me a song called The Undertaker.
Guest:Everything, every song on them album, the voice album, has something from one of my letters.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're in Japan in 64.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the first time you did Newport with the family was what, in the mid-60s?
Guest:Newport, yeah.
Marc:Was that before or after you guys were working with Martin Luther King?
Marc:Was that before?
Guest:We were working with Martin Luther King already.
Guest:In 64, we started working with Dr. King in 62 because we were at his church in 1962.
Guest:In Montgomery?
Marc:In Montgomery.
Guest:Pops came in one day, he told us, listen y'all, this man Martin is in this town, and he has a church here, and I would like to go to his 11 o'clock service.
Guest:This is a Sunday, and we didn't have to work until 8 o'clock that night.
Guest:So he asked us if we wanted to go.
Guest:We said, yeah, Pops, we want to go.
Guest:We all went to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Guest:We were ushered in and seated.
Guest:Someone let Dr. King know we were in the service, and Dr. King... He knew you already.
Marc:He knew the music.
Marc:You guys had hits already?
Guest:Yeah, we had hits.
Guest:He said, we're happy to have Pop Staples and his daughters here this morning, and we hope you enjoy the service.
Guest:Well, we enjoyed the service.
Guest:After the service, Dr. King would stand at the door and shake the worshiper's hand as they fouled out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So everybody found out.
Guest:Here come Pops.
Guest:He shook his hand, but Pops stood there and talked to him for a while.
Guest:And he finally came on out.
Guest:Manny Varney Cleety waiting for him.
Guest:He finally came on.
Guest:Get back to the hotel.
Guest:He called us to his room again.
Guest:He said, listen, y'all, I really like this man's message.
Guest:I like his message.
Guest:And I think that if he can preach it, we can sing it.
Guest:And man, we started singing Freedom Song.
Guest:We wrote March Up Freedom's Highway.
Guest:That was the first one we wrote.
Guest:Now, this is in 1963.
Guest:Yeah, this is before we went to Japan.
Marc:But that's how you got some notoriety, because that's when all the civil rights stuff is really starting to take hold, right?
Marc:Those are the big years.
Guest:Those were the big years.
Guest:In fact, that was the year a guy in Memphis, Tennessee, I've driven from Jackson, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, pulled in a service station, and this young, white, tall, skinny,
Guest:Young man, came over to the car service and when he finished getting the gas I asked him to wash the windshield because there were many bugs on him.
Guest:I had driven from Jackson, Mississippi to Memphis and he looked at me a long time, then he took a rag and he started swishing around and then he came to my window to get his money again and I told him, I said, I'd like a cash receipt.
Guest:And that's when he hit me, N-word.
Guest:N-word, if you want a cash receipt, you come over to the office.
Guest:All right, I'm out here on the street.
Guest:The office is way over there.
Guest:Pops is sitting there.
Guest:Pops said, Mavis, pull over there.
Guest:I pulled over to the office.
Guest:Pops went in.
Guest:And this young man, I'm sure he thought it was just...
Guest:two ladies and a man with white hair.
Guest:An old man, Pops wasn't old.
Guest:So Pops went in there, I'm watching.
Guest:I'm sure Pops asked him, why you talk to my daughter like that?
Guest:Why you call her a name like that?
Guest:I saw him shaking his finger in Pops' face and the next thing, Pops clocked him.
Guest:Knocked him.
Guest:Knocked him down.
Guest:He got up fighting.
Guest:They fought over into the grease part of the services.
Guest:All right, Pop slid down because he had on his house slippers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this young man got a crowbar.
Guest:He was about to hit Daddy.
Guest:And Cleety, my sister Cleety, she had made her way.
Guest:And she beating him in the back.
Guest:She beating him.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he got away from Cleety.
Guest:And I knew he was going for his gun going to his office.
Guest:I woke Pervis up.
Guest:I said, Pervis, they're fighting.
Guest:Pervis came from under them coats, man, like Superman coming out of that telephone booth.
Guest:That's my brother.
Guest:And see, the guy hadn't seen him.
Guest:He laying down on the back seat with coats of him because he had to drive next.
Guest:Pervis come out there.
Guest:He went up in the air because this guy was taller than Pervis.
Guest:He went up in the air and come down on him, and that's when that young man started running.
Guest:I'm driving the getaway car.
Guest:I'm backing up.
Marc:Getting out of there.
Guest:I almost hit him, but then that was as far as I went.
Guest:I stopped.
Guest:And they got back in the car, everybody was panting, panting.
Guest:Pop said, okay, Mavis, drive.
Guest:I said, Daddy, I cannot drive no more.
Guest:I can't drive.
Guest:I said, I'm too nervous.
Guest:And this tone of voice, he said, drive, Mavis.
Guest:So I started driving.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And man, I get on this bridge, the bridge from West Memphis, Arkansas, from Memphis to West Memphis, Arkansas.
Guest:You get across that bridge, you're in Arkansas.
Guest:I told Pops, I said, Daddy, Purvis, he the last one got in the car, he's going to talk about, I think we should go to the Lorraine Hotel.
Guest:Daddy said, oh no, we're going home.
Guest:The Lorraine is where Dr. King was shot.
Guest:Yeah, that's where we all stayed.
Guest:And Papa said, no, we're going home.
Guest:He said, keep on driving.
Guest:So I said, Dad, there's some lights behind me.
Guest:I said, I see some white lights going.
Guest:And he said, well, just drive on till you get across the bridge.
Guest:They got right up on us.
Guest:And they were shining them lights.
Marc:Just the guy and his friends?
Guest:No, no, this the police.
Marc:Oh, it was the cops, yeah.
Guest:This the police.
Guest:I got on across that bridge and Mark.
Guest:These people jumped out of them cars with shotguns.
Guest:Dogs was barking.
Guest:They even had German Shepard dogs with them.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And three cars.
Guest:And they started had us standing on the highway with our hands over our heads.
Guest:Cars zooming past, zooming past.
Guest:I ain't never been so scared in all my life.
Guest:What year was this?
Guest:This was 63.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:They started searching, oh, okay, we know what you did.
Guest:That boy told him that we had robbed him.
Guest:They told him we didn't pay for our gas, and they beat him up.
Guest:And daddy said, no, officer, we paid for our gas.
Guest:And he said, where you, he went in our trunk.
Guest:The people in Jackson, Mississippi had paid us in cash money, and they had it in the cigar box, you know, just like somebody would rob somebody.
Yeah.
Guest:And he said, oh, this is what we're looking for.
Guest:Papa said, that's our money, officer.
Guest:He said, well, you get this kind of money, boy.
Guest:He kept calling, Papa said, boy.
Guest:And that was making me flinch.
Guest:And Papa said, we sing in Jackson, Mississippi.
Guest:These are my children.
Guest:We sing gospel music.
Guest:And I got to hear what kind of saying you do to get this kind of money.
Guest:Papa said, you can call WDIA.
Guest:You can call.
Guest:We record right there in Memphis at Stacks Records.
Guest:You can call anybody in Memphis.
Guest:They'd tell you who we are.
Guest:They wouldn't hear it.
Guest:They kept talking.
Guest:He put that shotgun on Cleady because Cleady, well, she got out because she undo her jeans.
Guest:And she put her hands down to pull her jeans up.
Guest:And he told her, you want to get shot, don't you?
Guest:I told you to keep your hands over your head.
Guest:She put them back over her head.
Guest:They finally, after they got through scaring us to death, they finally put these handcuffs on us, handcuffed all four of us behind our backs, put us in separate cars.
Guest:And, Lord, I just started praying.
Guest:I knew I wasn't going to see my mother again.
Guest:I wasn't going to get out of there.
Guest:I thought they were taking us to lynch.
Guest:They were going to lynch us.
Guest:And...
Guest:We get to the jail.
Guest:That's what made me feel so much better.
Guest:I saw they was taking us to jail.
Guest:Not the woods.
Guest:Not the woods, man.
Guest:We got in jail, got to the jail.
Guest:Pop's walking in front of all of us.
Guest:Here's a black man mopping the floor.
Guest:Pop Staples.
Guest:No, he said, Papa Staples.
Guest:Papa Staples, what you doing here?
Guest:Pops just kept his head down, kept walking.
Guest:And then here we come.
Guest:He said, and your children.
Guest:Man, we walked on past.
Guest:I was glad to see a black man too, but it wasn't going to do us no good.
Guest:But they all let us sit down.
Guest:The chief come out.
Guest:The chief come out.
Guest:He said, all right, who's going to tell me what happened here?
Yeah.
Guest:And Pop said, I'll tell you, you take me to another room, I'll tell you what happened.
Guest:Pop still didn't want me to hear what all this boy said about me.
Guest:He took Pop to another room.
Guest:After a while, somebody come out, wanted Cleety to go to the car and get that receipt.
Guest:That receipt saved us.
Guest:It was all bloody, but it saved us.
Guest:It was paid for, we paid for our gas.
Guest:Because he told him we didn't pay for the gas, and we robbed him.
Guest:And beat him up.
Guest:And the chief come out of there after he saw that receipt.
Guest:He said, get them handcuffs off them people.
Guest:Get them off.
Guest:These young bucks, we're trying to get it straight around here, and they're trying to keep this mess going.
Guest:He said, take them handcuffs off.
Guest:And one of these policemen, he wanted to joke then.
Guest:I don't believe in my handcuffs.
Guest:Purr said, man, get these handcuffs off my sister.
Guest:You know, because they had me and Purr's handcuffed together.
Guest:They had run out.
Guest:And they let us go.
Guest:Man, the first time we went back to Memphis, you looked over to the right.
Guest:The chief had sent a note up to Pops.
Guest:Over to the right, the chief and about 12 policemen.
Guest:And Pops said, Chief, it's mighty nice of y'all to come out here to see us, but who's minding the town over there?
Guest:He said, somebody could rob the bank and all y'all over here.
Yeah.
Guest:But, man, that was something.
Guest:Everybody in Memphis knew about it.
Guest:Everybody was telling us.
Marc:Big news.
Guest:Big news.
Guest:Oh, man, when we got home the next day, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Sun-Times, all of them.
Guest:And my friend goes, Mavis, your family beat up a white man?
Guest:I said, yes, we did.
Guest:We beat up a white man.
Guest:I got really tough then, but more, I was a scared sister.
Guest:I was scared.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Marc:And that probably just steeled Pops' resolve around being part of what Martin Luther King was doing and what was going on down there.
Marc:That shift from gospel to socially activism music to fuel the civil rights struggle, that must have really sealed the deal.
Guest:That did it.
Guest:That did it.
Guest:He was ready.
Guest:Pop started writing freedom songs.
Guest:He wrote that one about them Little Rock Nine.
Guest:Why am I treated so bad?
Guest:And that turned out to be Dr. King's favorite.
Marc:That was after this.
Guest:That was after this.
Marc:So this event, you guys had not experienced that level.
Guest:Not, no.
Guest:We would see stuff.
Guest:We would...
Guest:We'd be driving.
Guest:Of course, you're in a Cadillac.
Guest:That's the best car to travel in.
Guest:These white young dudes would come over, try to run us off the road, but Pops didn't take no mess.
Guest:Pops would go right back into them.
Guest:take his car right back.
Guest:He said he didn't care about getting some scratches on the car.
Guest:They tried to run us off the road, and then they left us alone.
Marc:But you did have to deal with the separate hotels and all that stuff.
Marc:That was just a given.
Guest:We couldn't stay in the hotel.
Guest:We couldn't go in there.
Guest:And me and Yvonne and Cleety, one day down in Jackson, Mississippi, we went and told Pops we wanted to go shopping.
Guest:Pops said, all right, y'all go shopping.
Guest:And then he tell us, he said, don't start nothing.
Guest:And then the next breath, he would tell us, don't take nothing either.
Guest:We said, okay, daddy.
Guest:We go downtown, we let my older sister Cleety be our spokesperson.
Guest:We saw these shoes that we wanted to sing in, three pair.
Guest:Cleety, we go in the store.
Guest:Cleety said, yes, we would like to know if you have these silver shoes, these pumps in these three sizes.
Guest:The lady went and found it.
Guest:She said, oh, yes, I'll see you.
Guest:She went and found all the shoes.
Guest:She said, we have every size.
Guest:And Cleetie said, oh, all right, we better try these on.
Guest:And that's when she said, oh, well, hon, if you want to try them on, you have to go behind that curtain over there.
Guest:We couldn't sit down in the store.
Guest:We had to go behind that curtain.
Guest:And Cleetie, we looked at that curtain.
Guest:This was an old, raggedy, dirty, crocosite curtain that they done put up there.
Guest:And Cleetie said, oh, no, we can't take these.
Guest:And she said, y'all don't live here, do you?
Guest:Oh, yeah, we live here.
Guest:We've been living here all our life.
Guest:We live on Church Street.
Guest:And we did on Church Street.
Guest:But it was the Edward Lee.
Guest:This was a black woman and her husband would rent rooms to black artists who came through.
Guest:And that was on Church Street.
Guest:But clearly, he wasn't going to tell her, oh, no, we're from Chicago.
Guest:No, we live here.
Guest:All our lives we've been living there.
Marc:Didn't get those shoes.
Guest:Didn't get them shoes.
Marc:Which song was it that Dr. King liked?
Marc:Why am I treated so bad?
Marc:And you guys, you made a lot of appearances with him?
Guest:Oh yes.
Guest:We would sing before he would speak.
Guest:And when we'd be going to the meetings,
Guest:Everybody would be coming out, they'd be on the parking lot.
Guest:Dr. King, you'd hear him say, Stape, you're gonna sing my song tonight, right?
Guest:Papa said, oh yeah, doctor, we're gonna sing your song.
Marc:So he was a sweet man.
Guest:Oh, Lord.
Guest:Man, listen, my father had to try to hold all three of us.
Guest:When they shot Dr. King, we had just left Memphis, and we was in Nashville.
Guest:And we were on our way, on our way, getting ready to go to work.
Guest:All of us were about to get in the car.
Guest:And this man, this was a black motel.
Guest:He had built this black motel.
Guest:The owner, he come running around to where we were.
Guest:He says, pop, pop.
Guest:Somebody just shot Dr. King.
Guest:We go back in our room.
Guest:Pops turned on the television, and by this time, they announced Dr. Martin Luther King has died.
Guest:And, look, man, my sisters, we went crazy.
Guest:We loved this man so much, and for somebody to just shoot him.
Guest:And Pops was trying to hold us all, and Pops said, y'all, y'all, calm down.
Guest:We're going back home.
Guest:We can't sing tonight.
Guest:We're going home.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Had you just seen King in Memphis?
Guest:We just left him.
Guest:Just left him.
Guest:He was there for this... Were you staying at the Lorraine?
Marc:At the Lorraine.
Marc:The Lorraine Hotel.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:And you know how that was terrible.
Guest:Dr. King...
Guest:It took me a long time, long time to get over that.
Guest:It was like family, you know, and Dr. Martin Luther King, the most humbled person in the world, you know, just a beautiful, beautiful spirit.
Guest:And he came and stayed in Chicago in the slums to see how it was so he would know what he was talking about, you know.
Marc:And didn't you do a piece where you did one of his sermons as a song?
Guest:It's on that album.
Marc:It's on the one that you did with M Ward, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Living on a high note.
Marc:Living on a high note, right.
Marc:Yeah, that's nice.
Marc:Because it's just like you and a guitar almost, right?
Guest:Yeah, and man, they had to stop that.
Guest:I had to stop it twice because I was crying like a baby.
Guest:I said, wait, I got choked up.
Guest:You get choked up on some songs.
Guest:When you, they're so real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and Dr. King, today I still see his baby daughter, Bernice.
Guest:She's still in Atlanta.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:When we go to Atlanta, we see Bernice.
Guest:She's just like him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Just like him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, um...
Marc:And how did you guys, what was the conversation around how you proceed after that?
Marc:I mean, it was so leveling to everybody that was part of the struggle.
Marc:I mean, how did Pops, what was the pep talk after that?
Guest:Well, Pops would just let us know.
Guest:And we were all grown.
Guest:Pops would just sing our songs, and some of them we couldn't sing.
Guest:So Freedom Highway, we would definitely sing.
Guest:I still sing Freedom Highway.
Guest:I've been singing Freedom Highway on all of these shows that I'm having.
Guest:I don't leave it out of my lineup.
Guest:I sing Freedom Highway because I tell this little story.
Guest:I let the people know that this song that we're about to sing, we would start singing it in the morning and we'd sing it tonight as we marched down the highways, the southern highways with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Guest:And the police would stop us.
Guest:They'd stop us.
Guest:I tell people when I tell them, they want to know if we had papers to march.
Guest:That's in the 60s.
Guest:But we would probably need them today.
Guest:We'd probably need some papers if we were walking out there because of this man that's in the White House.
Guest:Tell them people to get papers.
Guest:They can't march for Martin Luther King.
Guest:I can just hear him.
Marc:Yeah, it's bad again.
Marc:I guess it's always been kind of bad, but we seem to certainly have moved backward.
Guest:It's terrible.
Guest:When I saw them young men walking, marching with torches in Charlottesville, and then what was so spooky about it was their faces.
Guest:These were young people.
Guest:They looked like college students.
Guest:They didn't look like bigots, the average bigot.
Guest:Old-timey bigots.
Guest:Old-timey, yeah.
Guest:I said, these people got a whole new thing.
Guest:These are new people.
Guest:And it was frightening.
Guest:It was frightening.
Guest:I saw the 60s on that news.
Guest:When they showed that news, I was waiting to see, well, are they going to burn a cross next?
Guest:They're going to burn a cross in somebody's yard?
Guest:We had...
Guest:Mark, we had some terrible times.
Guest:But I was never frightened.
Guest:I was never, because I knew I was with my father.
Guest:The only time that I really got scared, super scared, was that time in Memphis.
Guest:Third and Union.
Guest:I'll never forget that street.
Marc:3rd and Union.
Marc:That's where the station was?
Guest:Yeah, on 3rd and Union.
Marc:So you guys, but you just kept soldiering on for the cause?
Guest:We had to.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Guest:We had to keep going, you know, because it was instilled in us now, you know.
Guest:We are black, you know, and somebody's got to stand up for our people.
Guest:Right today, I wish...
Guest:there was someone who could be a leader.
Guest:Jesse Jackson.
Marc:It's weird that there's a lack of leaders in general.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Of people that have the fortitude or the courage to really move people in the right direction.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But nobody want to mess with it.
Marc:It takes a certain amount of courage.
Guest:It takes a certain, that's why.
Guest:And a certain type of person.
Guest:A certain type of person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dr. Martin Luther King.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because Rosa Parks said,
Guest:feet were hurting.
Guest:And she was not going to go to the back of the bus.
Guest:And then they had killed this young boy from Chicago, Emmett Till.
Guest:And that did it.
Guest:Dr. King knew he had to.
Guest:And Dr. King, every time I looked at him, I would see, you know,
Guest:either pain, either sorrow, or hurt in his face.
Guest:When I hear him laugh, that's what I remember of him most, his laughter, his laughter.
Guest:Oh, man, he had a jovel laughter.
Guest:And see, the men, they would all gather in the parking lot.
Guest:And they'd be in a circle.
Guest:And all of a sudden, they'd all break out laughing.
Guest:And you'd hear Dr. King.
Guest:And I'd say, oh, Dr. King is happy.
Guest:That would make me feel so good.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:That would make me feel so good.
Marc:So as you guys kept going, I'm trying to remember the year I must have seen you.
Marc:How long has Pops been gone?
Marc:2000.
Marc:Because I told you I saw you with John Hammond opening and we realized it was probably the bottom line or it was down in the village.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I remember John got up there and he had a hard time because he popped two strings.
Marc:First two songs, two strings went.
Marc:And then you guys came on.
Marc:It was a nice little room and it was great.
Guest:Yes, I remember.
Guest:I remember the bitter end.
Marc:Yeah, that was it, the bitter end.
Guest:The bitter end.
Guest:And John Hammond, I see him every now and then.
Guest:Yeah, I talk to him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's a very specific, unique guy, that guy.
Guest:He really is.
Marc:Oh, man, what a sound.
Guest:He really is.
Marc:He's good.
Marc:Now, I noticed, too, that two years ago, maybe, you toured with Dylan?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, I did.
Marc:So you and Dylan go way back.
Marc:Way back.
Marc:I mean, there's this piece that I read that when he heard you sing Uncloudy... Uncloudy Day.
Marc:Yeah, that he was struck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you guys, he must have been a kid.
Marc:I mean, I don't even know when that came out.
Marc:When did that come out?
Guest:Unclouded Day came out in 50, I was 13 years old.
Marc:So he must have been around that age too, right?
Guest:Yeah, but I'm older than, yeah, he must have been two years younger than me.
Guest:But he told it.
Guest:His manager, when we met Bobby, his manager told him, look, I want you to meet the Staple Singers.
Guest:And he said, I know the Staple Singers.
Guest:I've been listening to the Staple Singers since I was 12 years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Pops said, how do you know us?
Guest:He said, I listen to Randy.
Guest:Randy was a station out of Nashville, 50,000-watt station, and everybody could hear Randy.
Marc:In Minnesota.
Guest:In Minnesota.
Guest:He could hear him.
Guest:And he went on to quote a verse that I was singing in this song.
Guest:He said, Mavis.
Guest:Mavis told Dad at first, he said, Pops, you have a velvety voice, real smooth and velvety.
Guest:He said, but Mavis, she gets rough sometimes.
Guest:Mavis says, yonder comes little David with this rocking sling.
Guest:I don't want to meet him.
Guest:He's a dangerous man.
Guest:I said, you remember that?
Guest:He said, I know the whole song.
Yeah.
Guest:When was that?
Guest:That was in the 60s.
Guest:That was about 62.
Marc:How did he strike you at that age?
Guest:I just saw a little skinny, a white boy.
Guest:But I didn't know that he was such a genius then.
Guest:Curly hair, blue eyes, he was cute.
Guest:But he was just a little, and he wasn't trying to be
Guest:Swag, you know, little jacket.
Guest:I think sleeves were too short.
Guest:Real folky.
Guest:Real folky.
Guest:Real folky.
Guest:And that was the time.
Guest:Chess met him now today.
Guest:And this day, we were on a television show that we were doing for General Electric.
Guest:And everybody was on this show.
Guest:We even had meal tickets to get our lunch.
Guest:So everybody was in line.
Guest:And Bobby, my family, we must have been up front.
Guest:Bobby was in the back.
Guest:All of a sudden you heard, Pops, I want to marry Mavis.
Guest:And Pops said, well, don't tell me, tell Mavis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, people were laughing, and I was embarrassed.
Guest:I hung my head.
Guest:I said, that's that guy we just met.
Marc:He'd been thinking about you a long time.
Guest:He'd been thinking a long time on that one.
Guest:But he would send me messages through my sister, Yvonne.
Marc:After that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he wanted to take me out.
Guest:But then we just started courting.
Guest:You know, we would write letters back and forth.
Guest:I tell you, when he called me to open his show on his tour.
Marc:A couple years ago?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I said, oh, my God, Bobby wants me to open.
Guest:So I get there.
Guest:I'm in the dressing room.
Guest:And all of a sudden, this guy came and said, someone wants to see you.
Guest:I said, OK.
Guest:And I opened my door.
Guest:Here's Bobby.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:I said, Bobby, Bobby.
Guest:I said, oh, Bobby, I've been wanting to see you so bad.
Guest:I've been missing you.
Guest:I want to see you.
Guest:You could have seen me every day if you had married me.
Guest:Is that that long way?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, don't be so mean.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You could have seen me every day if you had married me.
Guest:Sounds like a threat.
Guest:Seems like he had that ready for me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's funny.
Guest:Oh, he's comical.
Guest:But we got along fine.
Guest:He would come to the bus to get me.
Guest:We would walk around holding hands.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:We know we were in love back then, but he wouldn't listen to me.
Guest:I told him, Mavis wants to get married.
Guest:I said, Bobby, I'm too young.
Guest:I'm too young.
Guest:We're too young.
Guest:Is it before you got married the first time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We were young.
Guest:We were teenagers when I met Bob.
Guest:I must have got the year wrong, but we were teenagers.
Guest:And I kept telling him,
Guest:We were too young, but he wasn't hearing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he kept saying.
Guest:How long did that go on for?
Guest:Oh, we courted, what, about three, four years.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He was serious.
Guest:Yeah, all serious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because we would see each other when we hook up.
Guest:I couldn't leave town to go see him because I was still young.
Guest:I couldn't tell my father I'm going somewhere by myself to see my boyfriend, you know.
Yeah.
Guest:And Chicago wasn't having folk festivals where Bobby would come to Chicago.
Guest:We'd just have to see each other when we were on the same show or something.
Guest:But we would hang.
Guest:Bobby was in Japan.
Guest:This must have been about 15, maybe 10 years ago.
Uh-huh.
Guest:And I kept getting this message from some lady.
Guest:See, when he checked in the hotel, he used a different name.
Guest:And he ain't thinking that I don't know this name.
Guest:I didn't know who that was.
Guest:They kept giving me this message.
Guest:I said, I'm sorry, but I don't know her.
Guest:Coming to find out it was Bobby.
Guest:After the show, this is a club.
Guest:We do two shows a night.
Guest:And after the second show, it's almost 2 o'clock in the morning.
Guest:So I get to my hotel, and here's this message from Bob Dylan.
Marc:And you were in Japan, too?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His real name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it just happened.
Guest:Bobby was right across the street.
Guest:His hotel was right across the street.
Guest:But I called him.
Guest:I said, Bobby.
Guest:He was sleeping.
Guest:Yes, Mavis.
Guest:I said, Bobby, well, how long have you been?
Guest:He said, I've been sending you messages to that Blue Note Club all the time.
Guest:I said, Bobby, I did not know that was you.
Guest:That was a lady's name.
Guest:That's the name I used for people.
Guest:I said, well, you got to hit me to it.
Guest:And then he talked about, I want you to hear my new record.
Guest:I want your opinion on my new record.
Guest:And...
Guest:I said, well, how am I going here?
Guest:Come over here.
Guest:I said, I can't come over there.
Guest:I'm right across the street from... I said, Bobby, I can't come.
Guest:It's 2 o'clock in the morning.
Guest:I can't walk out here in Japan by myself.
Guest:Right across the street.
Guest:I said, even right across the street?
Guest:I ain't coming out there.
Guest:And I said, you come over here.
Guest:He said, well, I have to catch the fast train in the morning.
Guest:I can't come out.
Guest:I said, well...
Guest:Here's my number.
Guest:When you get back to the States, we'll hook up.
Guest:I would really want to hear her.
Guest:I don't know which album.
Guest:He never did ring with it.
Marc:What did you think when he went through that gospel period?
Marc:How did that strike you?
Guest:It struck me that was him.
Guest:That was him.
Guest:He's that kind of person.
Guest:When he was singing the gospel songs.
Guest:Good songs.
Guest:But I don't know why he didn't call me.
Guest:All of those people that were singing gawk with him, they didn't even know nothing about Bobby.
Marc:You've sang some of those songs with him though, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You gotta serve somebody.
Marc:That's some song, huh?
Guest:Oh.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Probably put that on his album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, he did, yeah.
Guest:Serve somebody.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's nice, though.
Marc:So you guys hadn't seen each other in a while, and you go on tour, but you got a real friendship, you know?
Guest:Yeah, I felt really good.
Guest:Because for a long time, I thought maybe he was angry with me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I felt really good.
Marc:Oh, it seems like he had a pretty big life.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Somebody wrote that Mavis dodged a bullet.
Yeah.
Marc:That's probably true.
Guest:Nah.
Guest:But back then, he was a sweet, sweet kid.
Marc:So, you know, after all these years, you know, when, you know, working with the, doing your solo stuff and then, you know, working with the singers, is anybody still around?
Marc:Is Purvis around?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, he is.
Guest:Purvis is just, in my family, Purvis and I are the only two.
Guest:left.
Guest:I lost Yvonne last year.
Guest:Cleady in 2014 and Pops 2000.
Guest:It don't seem like that's 19 years that Pops has been gone.
Guest:I started thinking it just don't seem like that.
Yeah.
Guest:Don't seem like Yvonne.
Guest:Now, this past April, Yvonne's been gone a year.
Guest:I couldn't believe that.
Guest:And Purvis is the player.
Guest:He still thinks he's a player.
Guest:He's 84 years old.
Marc:He didn't stay in the music game, though, huh?
Guest:No.
Guest:He quit the group in 1969.
Guest:But he wanted to manage the emotions.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:He managed them.
Guest:Yeah, he got some hits on him with Isaac Hayes and Porter.
Guest:But the emotions, this was a family too, three girls and their father.
Guest:But the difference in the emotions is
Guest:They evidently didn't listen to their parents or their parents brought them up different from what our parents.
Guest:See, because the girls weren't haywire.
Guest:And Purvis couldn't keep them together.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:But now you've quit your family.
Guest:And Yvonne is singing and Purvis wanted to come back.
Guest:Because Pops told him, Pops say, Pops say, Pops, wouldn't you like to take a leave of absence instead of quitting?
Guest:No, no, I want to quit.
Guest:But you know how young boys get when they, no, I'm quitting, I'm gone.
Marc:So Pops really ran it like a business, huh?
Marc:Oh, business, oh yes.
Guest:Yeah, when Yvonne took that part, that's Yvonne's part now.
Guest:Yvonne wasn't just.
Marc:Because he wanted to come back after he met?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, after the girls broke up.
Guest:He ain't wanted to come back.
Marc:And you guys work with Curtis Mayfield?
Guest:Oh, Lord, yes.
Guest:Curtis lived right around the corner from us.
Guest:And we did Do It Again.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And many songs with Curtis.
Marc:He seems like he was a real genius.
Guest:He was.
Guest:He was a true genius.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Curtis, when he wanted us to sing Do It Again,
Guest:You know, this is the only secular song that the staple singers have sang.
Guest:Ever?
Guest:Ever, ever.
Guest:Because daddy told him, Curtis, now Pop, Curtis had given me my part.
Guest:And he said, now Pop, this is your part.
Guest:And that was, I like you, lady.
Guest:So find what you pretty have.
Guest:Pop said, Curtis, man, I'm not going to say that.
Guest:I'm not going to say that.
Guest:I'm a church man.
Guest:And Curtis, oh, Pop, you can say it.
Guest:The Lord won't mind.
Guest:He said, I'll pray for you, Curtis.
Guest:And look, me included in Yvonne.
Guest:We started that on Pops.
Guest:We wanted to hear our voices.
Guest:This was a movie, and we wanted to hear our voices on the big screen.
Guest:So we told Daddy, come on Pops, it's just a movie score.
Guest:Ain't nobody gonna mess with us over that.
Guest:And sure enough, the church people did not mess with us over Do It Again.
Guest:Now you talking about a circular song, secular.
Guest:And Pops, he didn't want to do it, but every time he said it on stage,
Guest:When he said, I like you, lady.
Guest:The lady's, oh, powerful!
Guest:They loved it?
Guest:Oh, he loved it.
Guest:He would just be grinning, and he'd look right at me and grinning with that twinkle in his eye.
Guest:I said, uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What happened to your mom?
Guest:Mom was home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mom would laugh, too, when we told her about it.
Guest:But, no, see, my mother, she didn't travel with us.
Guest:My mother was just a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
Guest:She kept everybody straight.
Guest:Yvonne and Cleedy, if anybody was going to argue, it would be Yvonne and Cleedy.
Guest:So mama would tell them, y'all don't do that.
Guest:You know your sisters, you're not going to get anywhere talking to each other like that.
Guest:She'd just calm them down.
Guest:My mother was the best cook in the world.
Guest:Everybody would come to town.
Guest:and she would listen to my friend's problems.
Guest:You know, she'd help everybody.
Guest:Nancy Wilson, she would call mama before she'd get there.
Guest:Mom, I want some cream corn.
Guest:When I get Ray Charles, he wanted greens and sweet potato pie.
Guest:He told mama, sister,
Guest:We can start a franchise with the sweet potato pie, you know?
Guest:We can start a franchise, big ones, little ones.
Guest:Oh, man, everybody would come to Mama's house.
Guest:And Pops, you know when they had the payola?
Guest:Pops started taking sweet potato pies to the disc jockeys.
Guest:And one of the disc jockeys, E. Rodney Jones in Chicago, he come on the radio,
Guest:Them stable singers, I tell you, they don't need no payola.
Guest:They got pieola.
Guest:And boy, the people, see, that was, he had just played Respect Yourself, Respect Yourself, brand new, and he played it, and then he started talking about pieola.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:The pie got respected yourself on the radio?
Guest:Yes, indeed.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Daddy knew what he would get on with my father.
Guest:Shrewd, shrewd.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So when you like the shift from like, you know, from Stacks and then you go down there and record with those guys at Muscle Shoals.
Marc:Yeah, it's like it just it's sort of stunning to me.
Marc:Like, you know, you did all the work with the family, but the way these producers shape, you know, you know how they're going to support you.
Marc:Like, did you like the working at Muscle Shoals?
Guest:Who is that?
Marc:Jerry Wexler, the original guys, right?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:He worked with Aretha, and he worked over at Fame.
Guest:It was a company there, a record studio called Fame.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And the one we were at was Muscle Show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This was Barry Beckett, Jimmy, Lil' David, David Hood.
Marc:Yeah, I know his son, Patterson.
Guest:Patterson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See, that's all there was in Muscle Show, our recording studios.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:It wasn't like a family like Stacks.
Marc:Like Stacks, everybody hung out, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, they would hang out at different studios.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:At different ones.
Guest:Because we never made it over to fame.
Guest:Now, I'll be going to Muscle Shows for a festival next month.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is David Hood still alive now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, David was playing.
Guest:He was at the birthday party in Nashville the other night.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Your birthday?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You had a big birthday.
Guest:I had a big one in Apollo.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The Apollo.
Guest:the Apollo was sold out.
Guest:And this one was at the Ryman in Nashville.
Guest:And this Wednesday night's gonna be here in Los Angeles.
Marc:I know, I wish I could come.
Marc:At the Ace.
Guest:You can't come.
Marc:I think I might have to.
Marc:I gotta go on the road on Thursday, but maybe I'll make sure I go.
Guest:Okay, okay, okay.
Guest:That'd be good.
Marc:So like down in Nashville, Jason Isbell came by?
Marc:Did Jason come back?
Guest:Oh yeah, Jason is.
Guest:He's playing on all three.
Guest:That dude is bad.
Marc:He is, man, right?
Guest:He is really, really good.
Marc:He can really write a song.
Marc:He can deliver it.
Guest:Yeah, and he's got this festival in Muscle Show.
Guest:So I hadn't met him.
Guest:I hadn't ever known.
Guest:Oh, but I love the way he sing and he plays guitar.
Guest:So I'll see him again Wednesday night.
Marc:Who else is coming on Wednesday?
Guest:Grace Potter.
Guest:Guess who wanted to come?
Guest:Who?
Guest:Tom Waits.
Guest:Tom Waits.
Guest:And John Mayer was coming, but he had to pull out.
Guest:Is Tom coming?
Guest:Well, Tom, he was coming.
Guest:He sent a message.
Guest:He has to go out east to a memorial.
Guest:He sang with me before he came to my show.
Guest:And I told him I wanted him to sing again.
Guest:Oh, Mavis.
Guest:I'll be there, Mavis.
Guest:Put them arms up.
Guest:But he can't make it.
Marc:You got a lot of great fans.
Marc:I do, I do.
Marc:It's crazy, right?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:It's amazing.
Marc:And I like the way that, you know, you kind of landed back into this sound, you know, with Ben.
Marc:Because, you know, you listen to the Prince records are great, you know, and then, you know, there's some other records.
Marc:There was one record there that was a little disco-y back in the day.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But now, you know, you come back around through, you know.
Marc:Full circle.
Marc:Yeah, through Rye and through, you know, Tweety.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you sort of landed this nice sound.
Marc:A lot like the sound that you did with...
Marc:the staple singers, but also like the one you did at Alligator, where it's just like it's all straight ahead.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You're exactly right, Mark.
Guest:I tell you, I'm so grateful, too.
Guest:I am so grateful.
Guest:So Ben, is he going to be there on Wednesday?
Guest:Oh, Ben will be there.
Guest:Yeah, Ben will be there.
Guest:Ben and I are going to do tomorrow night.
Guest:We're going to do Kimball.
Marc:Kimmel, yeah.
Marc:He's a nice guy.
Guest:Oh, he's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's nice.
Guest:But yes, oh, I am having the time of my life right now.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:You deserve it, and it sounds like you're having a great time, and the record's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's so much fun, huh?
Guest:It's so much fun.
Guest:It's so much fun.
Guest:But I'm kind of wondering, this might be my last record.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It might be the last one.
Guest:I don't know if I can top this record.
Marc:You don't have to decide now.
Guest:You don't think so?
Marc:No.
Guest:Okay, Mark.
Guest:Okay, well, I'll stop.
Guest:I'll stop.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me.
Guest:Oh, I had a wonderful time talking to you.
Marc:And I'm hoping I'll get out there on Wednesday.
Guest:I'm so glad you invited me.
Marc:I hope you get out there, too.
Marc:Yeah, it's going to be fun.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:It was a great honor to talk to you.
Guest:Yeah, when I saw you in London, I knew it was something about you.
Guest:It was something about you.
Marc:I was so excited to see you.
Marc:I didn't even know what that show was.
Guest:I'm like, Mavis is going to be there.
Guest:I wasn't either.
Guest:But y'all laughed at me when I had my egg white omelet.
Guest:Y'all cracked up.
Guest:We did.
Guest:I tell you.
Guest:But I sure thank you.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Guest:And I ask people if they know you, everybody knows you.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:Everybody knows you.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah, I've talked to a lot of people.
Guest:Yeah, I heard you talking to Melissa.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Melissa McCarthy?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:She's great.
Guest:She's one of my favorites.
Marc:She's so funny.
Marc:Is she coming on Wednesday?
Guest:I wish.
Guest:Oh, don't do that to me.
Marc:I wish I knew her well enough to tell her to come.
Guest:To tell her to come.
Marc:All right, well, have a good show.
Marc:I'll talk to you soon.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:amazing right what was that an amazing conversation huh how about that japanese folk song are you fucking kidding me are you fucking kidding me she just pulled that out i swear to god like i don't think she knew that she remembered that whole thing amazing it was a real that was a real treat for me i hope you enjoyed it her new album mavis's new album we get by is available now wherever you get music i don't have a guitar with me
Marc:Boomer lives!