Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone

Rating: B

I was a fan of Mavis Staples' last endeavor, 2007's We'll Never Turn Back, and when I found out Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) was producing her new album, I was intrigued. I'm a huge Wilco fan, and Tweedy is, in my opinion, perhaps the best songwriter of his generation. I enjoyed her performance at the Solid Sound festival this summer, so when her new album You Are Not Alone went on sale on Amazon for $1.99 (and it's still only $5), I picked it up.

I didn't go in with a lot of expectations, and that's good - anyone expecting Staples' soulful voice over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-style psychedelic lyrics and instrumentation would certainly be disappointed. This album is a lot closer to We'll Never Turn Back than it is to any of Wilco's catalog. There are two Tweedy originals here - the title track is like a soul update of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," complete with gorgeous harmonies, while "Only the Lord Knows" mixes the direct, casual style Tweedy has employed on some recent Wilco efforts ("I pick up the paper / I put down the paper / Turn on the TV / I get confused") with the political ("Can't trust him / can't trust her") and religious ("Only the Lord knows / And He ain't you") themes that have pervaded Staples' career. "Only the Lord Knows" would be totally out of place on a Wilco album, and the same sentiment applies to the album's covers - "In Christ There Is No East and West," "I Belong to the Band," and "Creep Along Moses" are right out of the gospel tradition.

Mavis' claim to fame is the amount of feeling and power in her voice, and nowhere is that more on display than in the cover of John Fogerty's "Wrote a Song For Everyone." She owns the tune; it feels much more personal when she sings it than in Creedence Clearwater Revival's original. The song takes on a gravity, transforming it into a sweeping statement about the civil rights movement.

This is a decen album, but all in all, predecessor We'll Never Turn Back touches on more profound emotional chords than You Are Not Alone. Tweedy doesn't really bring any of the weirdness or experimentation on display in Wilco. That's OK; the formula wasn't broken, and the cuts are mostly strong here, but it still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Mavis Staples official site

LIve Review - 8/14/2010: SolidSound Festival

A week after hitting up the first annual Saddleback Mountain Bluegrass Festival, I hit up another inaugural event: The SolidSound festival curated by Wilco at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA). The festival combined MassMoCA's typical array of visual arts displays with comedy and musical performances. I spent much of the day perusing the interesting artwork, watching hilarious comedy, and generally just wandering around. In the evening, I moseyed over to the main stage (on a field within the museum grounds) for Mavis Staples and Wilco.

Mavis Staples: legendary from her work with The Staple Singers, Staples has teamed up with some high profile producers on her last two albums, 2007's We'll Never Turn Back, produced by Ry Cooder, and the forthcoming You Are Not Alone, produced by Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy. Staples teamed up with Tweedy for the title track on that album (which he wrote) and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Wrote a Song for Everyone." She largely stuck to gospel standards, though she did throw in The Band classic "The Weight." At one point, Staples left the stage for ten minutes while her capable band played on. It was a little scary and didn't seem planned, but Staples came back to close with The Staple Singers' big hit "I'll Take You There."

Wilco: Wilco has gone from an iffy live band to a terrific one, and their now-stable lineup keeps pushing them to new heights. The sextet started off with a lot of material off their new album and no between-songs patter, but after a few tunes Tweedy and the rest of the group loosened up. Highlights included the crowd sing-along for almost the entire song "Jesus, Etc.," the extended feedback at the intro of "I'm the Man Who Loves You" (including Glenn Kotche standing on his drum kit like he was in K.I.S.S.), and a nod to hardcore fans by playing unreleased B-Sides "Not For the Season," "Cars Can't Escape," and "A Magazine Called Sunset" as well as debut-album relic "I Must Be High." After playing for two hours, the band came on for an encore consisting of "California Stars," "Heavy Metal Drummer," and Woody Guthrie-co-written "Hoodoo Voodoo," which featured guitarists Nels Cline and Pat Sansome trading blistering guitar riffs. A great performance to serve as the keystone for the festival.

Links:
SolidSound Festival official site
MassMoCA official site
Wilco official site
Mavis Staples official site