Mavis Staples recording live!

Mavis Staples
Hideout, Chicago
Monday, June 23, 2008

A night before Liz Phair arrives home at the Vic to recreate Exile In Guyville, Mavis Staples will rock the Hideout and record the sucker for a forthcoming live album.

It has been hard to ignore Mavis Staples lately. Her new ascendancy began not long after the depth of her father Pops, he who patriarched The Staples Singers. Her Alligator Records debut, Have A Little Faith, kept in close contact with her family and gospel roots, but had enough strength not to get all “Unforgettable” about it.

Last year she left the pews for the streets, stirring up African-American social struggles on We’ll Never Turn Back, whose release on Anti — a subsidiary of punk staple Epitaph — might have some bearing on the location of this gig and a barebones, three-piece band. An Epitaph press release points out Staples has been mostly hitting theaters and festivals — Hideout might want to get any flammable materials out of sight.

— Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “On My Way.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly