OG Quick Take: Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World

Another week, another Friday of album releases. For our latest Quick Take, we react to Sad and Beautiful World, the new record from gospel, soul and R&B legend Mavis Staples.

Describing Staples’ life and her 70+ years of making music is impossible in this format. I’ll just suggest Greg Kot’s excellent biography I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the Music that Shaped the Civil Rights Era. And the video below, which might require a trigger warning considering everything going on now.

Staples has worked with indie and indie-adjacent artists in recent years. Jeff Tweedy produced and played on three of her late period albums – 2010’s You Are Not Alone, 2013’s One True Vine, and 2017’s If All I Was Was Black. 2016’s Livin’ on a High Note was produced by M. Ward, while Ben Harper produced and wrote all the songs for 2019’s We Get By. Earlier, Staples released two albums – 1989’s Time Waits for No One and 1993’s The Voice – on Paisley Park Records, with Prince producing and writing several tracks on each.

Sad and Beautiful World contains nine covers and one new song (“Human Mind”) written specifically for this album by Allison Russell and Hozier. “Human Mind” finds Staples both lamenting the world and seeing a path forward (“Even in these days I find / This far down the line / I find good in it sometimes”). Staples’ voice adds gravitas to Kevin Morby’s gun violence protest song “Beautiful Strangers.” Her version of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed” is powerful and soaring, while her gorgeous Sparklehorse cover gives the album its title. The closing track is Eddie Hinton’s “Everybody Needs Love,” in which Staples calls for us to come together. Guest musicians on the record include Bonnie Raitt, Patterson Hood, MJ Lenderman, Katie Crutchfield, and Nathaniel Rateliff.

At age 86, Mavis Staples gave us a beautiful album to remind us that, despite any evidence to the contrary, good things can be found in the world. (Brian)