Following on from her latest Jeff Tweedy produced album If All I Was Was Black and then touring with Bob Dylan the legendary Mavis Staples has announced a handful of European dates for 2018, including two nights back-to-back at London’s vaunted Union Chapel. The album was released in the Autumn of 2017 to much critical acclaim and late night appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Later… with Jools Holland and most recently a Martin Luther King Jr. Day performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Additionally, in honour of Black History Month, she has issued a new video for the album’s titular track If All I Was Was Black. As video director Zac Manuel explains: “In 2017 I watched as all the Confederate monuments came down in New Orleans, but the conversation never arose as to what would replace them. This video imagines a reality where we venerate people who are truly deserving of being immortalised in public spaces, a reality in which Black people can be proud to see themselves on pedestals in the air, cast in iron and stone. The intent of this video is to highlight black excellence, and to provoke and encourage a larger public appreciation of the labour – physical and emotional – the people of colour often are expected to bear”.
TOUR DATES
Friday 20 June – Music Legends Festival
– Bilbao, Spain
Wednesday 4 July – Rotterdamse Schouwburg
– Rotterdam, Netherlands
Thursday 5 July – Caprera Openluchttheater – Bloemendaal, Netherlands
Monday 9 July – Union Chapel – London, United Kingdom
Tuesday 10 July – Union Chapel
– London, United Kingdom
She was also on at Love Supreme in Glynde. I saw her there and she was terrific! I followed the Civil Rights struggle from afar in the UK and I remember her from then.
I also saw her in a Mussel Shoals Alabama review a few years ago in London. She is great!!!!