“I’m the messenger,” Mavis Staples says 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, Staples’ spectacular twelfth studio album and first full-length collaboration with multi-GRAMMY Award-winner Ben Harper. We Get By is 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. Hailed by NPR as “one of America’s defining voices of freedom and peace,” 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. “I sing because I want to leave people feeling better than I found them,” Staples concludes. “I want them to walk away with a positive message in their hearts, feeling stronger than they felt before. I’m singing to myself for those same reasons, too.” Even the messenger needs a reminder every now and then.
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