Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples has been singing gospel longer than Queen Elizabeth II wore the crown, and somehow her voice still sounds like a promise. At 86, she steps onto a stage with the same spark she carried as a teenager touring with her family, radiating a joy so unmistakable that friends long ago nicknamed her Bubbles. She’s still touring, recording, laughing her way into sound checks—still surprised, genuinely, to find herself alive and singing with this much fire.
Rolling Stone put it plainly in its review of Sad and Beautiful World: “Staples transforms disparate material across genres and decades into her most powerful statement as a solo artist.” The album, it noted, cements her alongside Bettye LaVette and Willie Nelson in the pantheon of great American interpreters still doing vital work.
This spring, that extraordinary voice comes to the Plateau as Bear Shadow returns May 29–31, for three days of music and mountain atmosphere at Ferngrove on the Dillard Road, just outside Highlands. Her Saturday evening appearance instantly shifts the festival’s center of gravity. Bear Shadow has always prided itself on pairing artists and setting—mountains, spring air, and music with roots deep enough to feel lived-in—but Mavis adds something else entirely. She brings history, uplift, warmth, and a kind of musical benevolence that turns wherever she sings into holy ground.
But Bear Shadow 2026 isn’t saving all its magic for Saturday. The Infamous Stringdusters will headline Friday night, giving the festival an opening surge worthy of a mountain uprising. Few bands deliver live bluegrass with their level of muscle and precision; their shows feel engineered for altitude—high tempo, high shimmer, high spirits. Friday becomes not a warm-up but a declaration.
Saturday builds on that momentum, moving from Mavis’s soulful benediction into Trombone Shorty’s brass-soaked hurricane of funk and jazz, followed by Marc Broussard’s bayou-steeped soul. Sunday keeps the storytelling thread alive with Charley Crockett, Margo Price, Kashus Culpepper, and Pony Bradshaw—artists who shape songs like portraits, rich with grit, shine, and humanity.
Altogether, the newly expanded lineup gives Bear Shadow deeper resonance. The Stringdusters light the fuse; Mavis delivers the soul; the rest of the weekend rises to meet them. When she lifts her voice Saturday evening, joyful as ever, it will feel like the mountains themselves are leaning in to listen.
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