Mavis Staples: Mavis Staples / Only for the Lonely (1993)

Mavis Staples began her career with her family group in 1950. With Mavis' earthy contralto voice and Pops' songs, singing, and guitar playing, the Staple Singers evolved from enormously popular gospel singers to become the most spectacular and influential spiritually-based group in USA. The group signed to Stax Records in 1968 and hit the Top 40 eight times between 1971 and 1975, joining their gospel harmonies and deep faith with musical accompaniment from members of Booker T. and the MGs. Mavis also recorded two solo albums for Stax Records. The first one, ‘Mavis Staples’, released in 1969, was a fine collection of pop standards like Dionne Warwick's ‘A House Is Not a Home,’ Sam Cooke's ‘You Send Me’ and a pair of Otis Redding songs. The follow-up, 1970's ‘Only for the Lonely’, was even better, yielding the heartbreaking R&B hit ‘I Have Learned to Do Without You,’ the exquisite slow blues ‘How Many Times’, the best version ever recorded of the classic ‘Since I Fell For You’ and the finger-snapping Memphis soul of ‘It Makes Me Wanna Cry.’ The 20 tracks from those two albums were combined on this 1993 CD entitled ‘Only for the Lonely’ and supplemented with ‘That's the Way Love Is,’ a duet with Johnny Taylor from Boy Meets Girl, a Stax collection of male-female duets. I added myself five more songs from the 1988 compilation ‘Don’t Change Me Now’, which makes a total of 26 tracks. This is an invaluable glimpse at the first solo steps by one of the best - and one of my favourite- soul singers.

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Mavis Staples singing with The Staple Singers 'I'll Take You There' (1972):

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