Mavis Staples, the gospel icon and civil rights activist, has collaborated with pretty much every big name in music starting with her family's powerhouse group, the Staple Singers.

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1939, Mavis was the youngest of four children and began singing with her family when she was only 10 years old. Led by their father Roebuck "Pops" Staples, who was a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Staple Singers emerged in the '60s as an uplifting and empowering force in the Civil Rights Movement.

Songs like "Freedom Highway" were directly inspired by the marches and protests of the era, while the cover of their 1968 album What the World Needs Now is Love showed a young white boy and African American girl sharing a drink from a water fountain and featured powerful gospel covers of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready."

In the 1970s, the Staple Singers released a string of hits on the Stax label and collaborated with the Band on the historic concert film The Last Waltz; and, in 1999, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shortly before Pops passed away. In the years since then, Mavis has emerged as a beloved solo artist and has worked in the studio with Prince, Ry Cooder, Jeff Tweedy, M. Ward, and Ben Harper on her prolific catalog of solo releases.

Social messages are still at the core of Mavis's work, as is her decades-long message of optimism and resilience. Mavis Staples has racked up so many accolades that it's hard to count them all. She's a Blues, and Rock and Roll, Hall of Famer; a Grammy winner; and a musical pioneer. As she says, she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., performed at John F. Kennedy's inauguration, and sang in Barack Obama's White House.

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