Please note, when selecting the Print at Home or Mobile Delivery method, you will not have access to view your tickets until 14 days prior to the performance.
Grim days call for fierce love. And Mavis Staples, one of the most enduring figures in American music, is laying it down. Sad and Beautiful World is the fifteenth solo album from a national treasure and multigenerational talent. On her new record, Mavis stands side by side with us in the face of dangers she knows all too well, at a time when more and more people have reason to wonder who and what could be lost....
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Please note, when selecting the Print at Home or Mobile Delivery method, you will not have access to view your tickets until 14 days prior to the performance.
Grim days call for fierce love. And Mavis Staples, one of the most enduring figures in American music, is laying it down. Sad and Beautiful World is the fifteenth solo album from a national treasure and multigenerational talent. On her new record, Mavis stands side by side with us in the face of dangers she knows all too well, at a time when more and more people have reason to wonder who and what could be lost.
Sad and Beautiful World was produced by Brad Cook, known for his work with Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, and Iron and Wine, among other artists. The record spans seven decades of the American songbook — a range nearly as vast as Mavis’ career — and includes reinventions of timeless songs as well as original music.
Now 86, Mavis has been performing since the age of eight. After starting out with her father Roebuck “Pops” Staples, sisters Cleotha and Yvonne, and brother Pervis in the Staple Singers more than seventy years ago, she’s the lone surviving member of the group, still carrying her family’s gifts and knowledge with her as a living heritage.
Inducted into several halls of fame (blues, rock, and gospel), a Kennedy Center Honoree, a winner of multiple Grammys (including a Lifetime Achievement award), Mavis is our musical history. She’s collaborated with nearly every major figure of her era(s), from Dylan to Prince, Aretha, and Willie — not to mention countless stars from subsequent generations.
Sad and Beautiful World includes cameos by artists who have become part of Mavis’ world, many of whom are legends in their own right. Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, MJ Lenderman, Justin Vernon, and others shine a light on her, while Mavis does what only she can do. Embracing vulnerability, she sings close and deep here, drawing the listener into a circle filled with her unforgettable presence.
Not only is Mavis still making studio albums, she’s still on the road, returning to venues like the Newport Folk Festival, where she’s been a fixture since 1964. This July at Newport, Public Enemy founders Chuck D and Flavor Flav dropped to their knees to bow down before her. She made clear it was all unnecessary, but there’s something regal about her that people respond to — a grace that rises out of lived experience.
Few people wield the combination of moral authority and the musical artistry that Mavis possesses. The moral authority comes from experiencing the Jim Crow era as a Black woman playing music in the South. With Freedom Highway, the Staple Singers created the literal soundtrack for the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. They opened for Martin Luther King Jr. at his rallies. Mavis has spent a lifetime standing up for those people the most powerful among us would like to beat down.
This Event is All Ages and Reserved Seating.
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