Mavis Staples is determined to keep singing, said David Remnick in The New Yorker. The gospel icon, 83, grew up singing with her family ensemble, the Staple Singers, and in recent decades recorded unexpected collaborations with artists like Prince, Arcade Fire, and David Byrne. During the worst of the pandemic, Staples, who lives in Chicago, where she grew up, sang to overcome the tedium of isolation. “Mostly our old stuff,” she says, “the songs we started singing when I was a kid: ‘Didn’t It Rain,’ ‘Help Me Jesus.’” Her family was a loving cocoon for her entire life, but now her father, mother, brother, and three sisters are all dead. She’s left with memories of performing with them, including at a rally before a Martin Luther King Jr. speech.…