Marvel Loise
Gospel and soul icon Mavis Staples and her band kick off this year’s Brazos Nights music series at Indian Spring Park by 7pm on Friday
Waco’s 2017 Brazos Nights free concert series starts in a big way at Indian Spring Park on Friday night with iconic gospel and soul singer Mavis Staples the headlining act.
Staples’ expressive voice served as one of the memorable components of the Chicago-based family group the Staple Singers, founded and led by her father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples. With songs like “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” in addition to more pointed songs like “Long Walk To D.C,” the Staple Singers’ music formed some of the background to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s.
She continued her career in the years after her father’s death in 2000, turning out solo albums as well as musical collaborations with the likes of Prince, Ry Cooder, Jeff Tweedy and Arcade Fire. Her voice is found in song samples by Ludacris and Ice Cube.
It’s free, as all Brazos Nights concerts are, and in Indian Spring Park. Opening at approximately 7:15 p.m. are the Austin blues-funk-rock guitar duo Glenn and Alex Peterson, known as the Peterson Brothers. The young brothers — Glenn, the oldest, is just barely in his 20s — have a weekly gig at Austin’s Continental Club, and their 2015 debut won the Living Blues Critics Award for best debut album.
Upcoming Brazos Nights performers and their dates are Tejano veterans David Lee Garcia y Los Musicales on May 5 and Dallas 1990s “psychedelic rock” band Tripping Daisy on June 9. Brazos Nights winds up with Fourth on the Brazos on July 4 at McLane Stadium’s Touchdown Alley.
While the Petersons bring music from the youth end of the spectrum, Staples, 78, represents the seasoned veteran. The Chicago native got her start when her father, Pops, formed a gospel group from her and her siblings Cleotha, Pervis and, later, Yvonne. The Staple Singers — the second S dropped from the family name — primarily sang in Chicago-area churches until she graduated from high school in 1957, after which they began to tour.
Becoming well-known in gospel music circles, the Staple Singers’ career had a turning point in 1963 when they met civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and became active in the civil rights movement. They signed with Memphis’ Stax Records in 1968 and, anchored by musicians from the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, enjoyed their greatest commercial success with “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You There” and “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me).”
After Stax’s bankruptcy in 1975, the Staple Singers had one last No. 1, “Let’s Do It Again,” on Curtom Records, as well as singing “The Weight” with the Band in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 documentary, “The Last Waltz.”
Mavis Staples began to come into her own as a soloist and collaborator in the ’70s, and subsequent decades found her recording with the likes of Billy Preston and Nick Cave. Staples won a Grammy Award in 2011 for her Americana album, “You Are Not Alone.”
Preceding Brazos Nights, Baylor School of Music ensembles, singers and instrumentalists will perform John Cage’s Musicircus from 6 to 7 p.m. on the Waco Suspension Bridge.
