Mavis Staples might be one of the few voices who'll be welcome on the transfer when Conan takes over the Tonight Show after Jay Leno leaves (sooner please?).
They like her. They really do. So much so Mavis Staples' pipes, her vision and her personality, which all graced the Late Night With Conan O'Brien stage in October, will be rebroadcast on NBC Feb. 21 and CNBC on Feb 22. She'll be singing the title track from her latest solo CD on Alligator Records. (Reviewed here)
Success breeds success, though Mavis Staples doesn't need Conan's show to reach any other plateau in the music business. For those unfamiliar with "The Voice" she was heard on the Grammy's Feb. 13 after she won a Lifetime Achievement Award (as a member of the Staple Singers) from The Recording Academy. On stage the gospel star was mixing it up with the Blind Boys of Alabama, John Legend and Kanye West.
On Late Night ... she shares the spotlight with Claire Danes (rowar meow, purrrr.) and Queer Guy Carson Kressley (anti-rowar meow, purrrr)
In March, Staples will be a featured speaker/performer at the annual South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas.
Other artists who won Lifetime Achievement awards this year are Eddy Arnold, Art Blakey, the Carter Family, Morton Gould, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton, and Pinetop Perkins.
Article comments
1 - Dave
And now we interrupt this posting for a look at Mavis shooting a potato cannon.
2 - Temple Stark
ha ha ohmylord. Is that really her?
Funny !@#$%. I'd call that pipes :-)
4 minutes till Bill Maher