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The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts and 88.5 FM present American icon and GRAMMY Award-winner Mavis Staples for one-night only on Thursday, February 13 at 8:00pm. Mavis Staples also has the distinction of being in the Blues Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. GRAMMY Award-winning producer and singer-songwriter Son Little will open for Staples.
Renowned as part of the American gospel and soul singing group The Staple Singers ("Respect Yourself," "I'll Take You There"), Mavis Staples has been named "one of America's defining voices of freedom and peace" by NPR. The GRAMMY Award-winner brings her roof-raising performance to The Soraya, including songs from her twelfth studio album, We Get By (ANTI- Records), a full-length collaboration with artist and producer Ben Harper.
"I'm the messenger," Mavis Staples said on the eve of her 80th birthday. "That's my job -- it has been for my whole life -- and I can't just give up while the struggle's still alive. We've got more work to do, so I'm going to keep on getting stronger and keep on delivering my message every single day."
That message - a clarion call to love, to faith, to justice, to brotherhood, to joy -- lies at the heart of We Get By. Backed by her longtime touring band, Staples breathes extraordinary life into Harper's compositions on the record, delivering powerhouse performances with both a youthful vigor and a commanding maturity. The arrangements here are spare but weighty, matched by Harper's suitably lean and thoughtful production, and Staples seizes the opportunity to showcase her remarkable and continued evolution as an artist, one still growing and exploring more than half a century into her storied career.
We Get By is undoubtedly a timely collection, arriving such as it does in the face of deep social divisions and heightened political tensions, but like everything Staples touches, it's also larger than any particular moment, a timeless appeal to the better angels of our nature that's universal in its reach and unwavering in its assurance of better things to come.
Rhythm and blues musician Son Little, who will open for the legendary singer, first collaborated with Staples as a producer on her four-song EP, Your Good Fortune (ANTI- Records). His work on Staples' "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" earned him a GRAMMY Award and a Best Roots Performance Award in 2016.
Single tickets for Mavis Staples with special guest Son Little start at $36 and are now on sale at The Soraya's ticket office, (818) 677-3000 and at TheSoraya.org.
This performance has been generously sponsored by Carolyn Clark Powers.
About Mavis Staples
Hailed by NPR as "one of America's defining voices of freedom and peace," Mavis Staples is the kind of once-in-a-generation artist whose impact on music and culture would be difficult to overstate. Staples is both a Blues and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer; a civil rights icon; a GRAMMY Award-winner; a chart-topping soul/gospel/R&B pioneer; a National Arts Awards Lifetime Achievement recipient; and a Kennedy Center honoree. She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., performed at John F. Kennedy's inauguration, and sang in Barack Obama's White House. Staples has collaborated with everyone from Prince and Bob Dylan to Arcade Fire and Hozier, blown away countless festivalgoers from Newport Folk and Glastonbury to Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, performed with The Band at The Last Waltz, and graced the airwaves on Fallon, Colbert, Ellen, Austin City Limits, Jools Holland, the GRAMMYs, and more.
At a time when most artists begin to wind down, Mavis Staples ramped things up, releasing a trio of critically acclaimed albums in her 70's with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy that prompted Pitchfork to rave that "her voice has only gained texture and power over the years" and People to proclaim that she "provides the comfort of a higher power." In between records with Tweedy, Staples teamed up with a slew of other younger artists - Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Nick Cave, Valerie June, tUnE-yArDs, and M. Ward among others - for Livin' On A High Note, an album The Boston Globe called "stunningly fresh and cutting edge" and which first introduced her to Harper.
For more information visit TheSoraya.org
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