Mavis Staples Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth

What is Mavis Staples’s Net Worth?

Mavis Staples is an American singer and civil rights activist who has a net worth of $6 million. Since rising to fame as a member of her family’s singing group the Staple Singers, Mavis Staples has released numerous albums and collaborated with a plethora of other artists, including Aretha Franklin, David Byrne, Jeff Tweedy, and her former boyfriend Bob Dylan. Staples has earned many honors, including three competitive Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early Life and Education

Mavis Staples was born on July 10, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois to Oceola and Roebuck. She attended Parker High School on the South Side of Chicago.

The Staple Singers

With her father and her siblings Cleotha, Pervis, and Yvonne, Mavis was a member of her family’s singing group the Staple Singers. They first performed in Chicago-area churches in 1948, and in 1952 they signed their first professional contract. The Staple Singers had their first significant hit with their 1956 recording of the gospel song “Uncloudy Day.” After Mavis graduated from Parker High School, she went on the road with her family. By the mid-1960s, the Staple Singers had become one of the most renowned and influential gospel groups in the United States. Bolstered by the Staples patriarch’s close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr., the group emerged as a defining spiritual voice of the civil rights movement.

The Staple Singers covered many contemporary hit songs in the ’60s, including “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” and “For What It’s Worth,” and performed original protest songs such as “When Will We Be Paid?” and “Long Walk to DC.” After signing with Stax Records in 1968, the Staple Singers began collaborating with Booker T. & the MGs. The group hit its commercial peak between 1971 and 1975, with eight top-40 singles and two number-one hits, “I’ll Take You There” and “Let’s Do It Again.” Among their other popular songs during this time were “Respect Yourself” and “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me).” The Staple Singers continued releasing albums until 1984. In 1999, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2005 were given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Solo Music Career

Staples launched her solo career with a self-titled album in 1969 on Volt Records. She followed that with “Only for the Lonely” in 1970. Staples didn’t have another solo album until 1977, with the soundtrack album to Sidney Poitier’s film “A Piece of the Action.” Two years after that, she released “Oh What a Feeling.” In the 1980s, Staples released a self-titled album and finished the decade with the album “Time Waits for No One,” which was produced by Prince. Her next solo studio album, 1993’s “The Voice,” was also produced by Prince. In 1996, Staples collaborated with keyboardist Lucky Peterson on the album “Spirituals & Gospels: A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson.”

After a hiatus of around eight years, during which time Staples’s father passed away and her sister Cleotha became ill, Staples released the album “Have a Little Faith” in 2004. The same year, she was featured on Dr. John’s song “Lay My Burden Down,” for which she received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Gospel Performance. In 2005, Staples contributed to the tribute album “That’s What I Say: John Scofield Plays the Music of Ray Charles.” She went on to release the civil rights movement-themed concept album “We’ll Never Turn Back” in 2007. The following year, Staples released her first live album, “Live: Hope at the Hideout,” which went on to earn a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

Staples won her first Grammy Award, for Best Americana Album, for her hit 2010 studio album “You Are Not Alone.” She received another nomination for her next studio album, 2013’s “One True Vine,” a collaboration with Jeff Tweedy. Staples went on to release “Livin’ on a High Note” (2016), “If All I Was Was Black” (2017), and “We Get By” (2019). During this period, Staples collaborated with such artists as Arcade Fire, Gorillaz, Jeff Tweedy, Bob Dylan, and Hozier. In 2022, she collaborated with drummer Levon Helm on the album “Carry Me Home” and contributed to Jon Batiste’s album “We Are.” For the latter, she shared the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Staples released her next solo album, “Sad and Beautiful World,” in 2025.

Film and Television

Staples has appeared in various films and television programs during her career, including the concert documentaries “Soul to Soul,” “Wattstax,” “The Last Waltz,” and “Summer of Soul” and the television series “New York Undercover” and “The Cosby Show.” She was also the subject of the 2015 documentary film “Mavis!” Elsewhere, Staples has performed on many talk shows, including “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Conan,” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Personal Life

In 1964, Staples married Chicago mortician Spencer Leak. They divorced in 1972 when Staples refused to end her music career to appease him. She had previously dated folk singer-songwriter and musician Bob Dylan, whose marriage proposal she says she declined.