There was nothing conventionally romantic about soul legend/civil rights icon Mavis Staples’ Valentine’s Day weekend shows at Yoshi’s Oakland. But while the fleeting whimsies of romance may have been absent, they were replaced by something much more substantive: the fiercely passionate love, devotion, and commitment with which Ms. Staples, 70, has tackled her stirring, liberating material ever since she first began recording with her family band, The Staples Singers, sixty years ago.
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