Stax went out of business in 1975, but by then the Staple Singers had already moved to Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records. There, the family scored big with the Mayfield-produced and written "Let's Do It Again", which came from a soundtrack. In retrospect, the movie -which was a comedy starring Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby and Jimmie Walker- is quite silly, but the album is still wonderful. "Let's Do It Again" quickly became a number one R&B hit and sold over a million copies in the U.S, earning the Staples' a well-deserved gold record. The album of the same name went to #20 on the American album chart in November 1975. Following that LP the Staple Singers, for some mysterious reason, started called themselves the Staples for a while and signed directly with Warner, which also distributed Curtom's products. The subsequent albums ""Pass It On" (1976, produced by Curtis Mayfield), "Family Tree" ('77, produced by Tom Tom 84) and "Unlock Your Mind" ('79, produced by Jerry Wexler) are perhaps the most underrated of all the Staples' albums. Despite a few ill-fitting, slick Disco excursions, they all include several truly awesome cuts. "Family Tree" offers a taste of Pops' soulful-beyond-words voice on the funky "Hang Loose" and Mavis's lead on the Blues-Funky "Color Me Higher" is priceless. The title track and "Making Love" from "Pass It On" are two lost gems and so is "Chica-Boom" from "Unlock Your Mind". None of these albums are available on CD, but are well worth looking for in the used record binges.

Like "Let's Do It Again", "A Piece Of The Action", issued on Curtom in 1977, was a soundtrack to a movie, starring Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby and James Earl Jones. This, Mavis's third solo album must be one of the fastest recorded albums in music history and one Mavis didn't know she was gonna make until the day before entering Curtis Mayfield's studio. "Curtis called me and said (imitates Curtis) 'Mavis, baby.. I need you. I got a deadline!', Mavis said via phone from her home in Chicago, Illinois. "You see, Roberta Flack was supposed to do that album, What was happening was that Roberta was going through some kind of trying time. I think she had broken up with her boyfriend or something like that and she just couldn't sing the songs. Curtis said 'Roberta's sick or something. Mavis, I feel so sorry for her, but I've got to get this done. I really need you!' Curtis's manager called me and he had the nerve to say 'Mavis, Curtis said you were gonna do this. Now we were paying Roberta Flack 50.000 and we'll give you 25.000.' I said: 'No, you won't! Are you serious? How can you fix your mouth to tell me that? What you're saying to me is that Roberta is so much better than I, or she has more seniority, when in fact we've been singing like ten years before Roberta Flack came along!' I wasn't gonna budge. Curtis was my friend, but.. And the thing is, if his manager hadn't ever said that, if he had just said that 'the offer is 25.000', I would have taken it and gone on. But when he said 'we were paying Roberta Flack 50.000, but you're gonna get 25.000'.. Oh nooo, buddy! (laughs). I was insulted then, but I wasn't gonna be so insulted to the fact that if you pay me the 50.000, then I'll do it."

Thankfully, Mavis got her fifty grand and the world got a record that is perhaps the funkiest it has ever heard from Miss Staples. The title song "A Piece Of The Action" entered the R&B charts and landed at #47 towards the end of 1977. As far as I know, the LP has not been re-issued on CD, which is a shame, as it is replete with funky tracks like "Chocolate City", "Orientation", "Getting' Deeper" and "Koochie, Koochie, Koochie". Listening to the album, I personally find it hard to imagine Roberta Flack singing this material. I guess some fans of Mavis's had a problem with the sexy "Good Lovin' Daddy" too, but Mavis herself says she likes the record still and enjoyed making it as well. "When Curtis called me, he had like three more days before his deadline, so after we got all of the business straight, I spent two nights at his studio. We stayed there all night. I did a whole album in two days! When he called me, he had three days left, but see, I didn't go there until the next day. All of us, Yvonne and I and all the musicians, we all felt that we had to help Curtis because he was really in trouble! We would sing some, stop and have lunch or dinner. His studio was beautiful. And all of us had pallets, either on the floor or the couch, wherever anybody could sleep. He already had a shower and everything there. His studio was up on the north side, we live on the south side, and it was relatively new then, so it was still beautiful and everything."

Perhaps Curtis was in such a rush that he forgot to put the musicians' names on the sleeve, I asked? "Yeah, that may very well be", Mavis laughed. "But I remember who was there! Quinton Joseph, he was the drummer. He's a stand-up drummer, by the way, and Bernard 'Beanie' Reed played bass. I think it was just a rhythm section there because Curtis had put most of the music down. You know, Curtis plays different instruments too. Yeah, that is what happened. The tracks were already down, but Curtis needed stuff touched up and with certain other pieces in there, with the drums and the bass. And he gave me all these songs and we just started putting them down. After we finished recording, Curtis said 'Mavis, I want you to have a beautiful picture on the album cover', so he sent me to this studio to have the photos taken. And when the picture came out, Curtis called me again. He said 'Mavis, you look just like a little doll!' (laughs)."