| CD REVIEW Mavis Staples |
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Band : Mavis Staples July 10, 2009 marked the 70th anniversary of this Chicago born American Rhythm And Blues and Soul/ Gospel singer, whom started her career with her family group back in 1950. At first the Staple Singers (which was led by pater familias Roebuck "Pops" Staples) enjoyed local popularity singing at churches and appearing on a weekly radio show, but in 1956 they scored a hit with their song "Uncloudy Day" (released through legendary label Vee-Jay). One year later Mavis finished high school, so guitarist Pops took Mavis and her siblings Cleo, Yvonne and pervis out on the American roads. With recordings on United, Riversdale and Vee-Jay, the band evolved from very popular Gospel singers to become the most spectacular and influential spiritually-based group in America. Part of which was certainly due to the fact that, in the mid '60s, they became the spiritual and musical voices of the Civil Rights movement (covering contemporary Pop songs with a positive message), inspired by Pops' close personal friendship to Martin Luther King. Over the years the band evolved their sound from the purely Gospel towards a Soul/ Gospel/ Rhythm And Blues, and among the band's own hit songs you'll find none less than "I'll Take You There", "Let's Do It Again", and the huge "Respect Yourself" (all released through the infamous Stax label). The Staple Singers stopped their activities in 1994, and were inducted in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1999. One year later Pops dies from the complications of a concussion suffered in December. In 2005 the group was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (info taken/ re-written from the band's page at Wikipedia) Mavis started her solo career parallel to that of her family group as early as 1969 when her self-titled album was issued through the Volt imprint. The single "Cryin' In The Chapel", taken from that album, initially didn't move much, but when it was re-issued in 1994 by Sony Music on the Lost Soul compilation it became a hit.1970 saw the release of Mavis's sophomore album Only For The Lonely on the Stax label, but again with little commercial success. After that, solo albums would come fairly dispersed in time : A Piece Of The Action (1977, a soundtrack album on the Custom label), Oh What A Feeling (1979, Warner), Mavis Staples (1984, HDH), Don't Change Me Now (1986, Volt/ Ace), Time Waits For No One (1989, Paisley Park), The Voice (1993, Paisley Park), and Spirituals & Gospel: Dedicated To Mahalia Jackson (1996, Verve, Mavis' tribute to one of her most important inspirations, and a family friend at that). 2003 would become a pivotal year in the singer's career (which had been wining a bit over the last coupe of years). She not performed at Memphis' Orpheus Theater alongside a bunch of her fellow former Stax Records stars at the Soul Comes Home concert (she's also featured on the CD/ DVD culled from the show) which was held in conjunction of the opening of the Stax Museum Of American Soul Music on the label's original site...but was also nominated for a Grammy Award in the category "Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals" for her duet with Bob Dylan (an old boyfriend, would you know...in fact Dylan once asked Pops for Mavis' hand in marriage) on the song Gotta Change My Way Of Thinking" on his Gotta serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs album. So, in 2004 Mavis made a major national return with her Have A Little Faith album issued through Chicago's own Alligator Records. That same year she also contributed to legendary Jazz/ Rock guitarist John Scofield's album That's What I Say, a tribute to Ray Charles, which led to a live tour featuring also Mavis. The hightened attention eventually led to Mavis signing to the Anti- label, whose first release by her would be the Ry Cooder produced We'll Never Turn Back. Concentrating on Gospel songs from the Civil Rights era, the album also included two songs written by Cooder. Mavis' last album prior to the current one, was the live recorded Live At the Hideout (Anti-, 2008). For Mavis' sophomore studio album on the Anti- label, a similar method as on her debut with the label was used. Similar, in that producer Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) wrote two songs ( the album's title track and "Onnly The Lord Knows") for her. Mavis also brings tribute to her father, covering the songs "You Don't Knock", and "Downward Road". The rest of the track-list is made up of traditionals (3 of them, of which "Wonderful Savior" definitely stands out for being done a capella) and other choice-picked covers. In order of appearance on the album: Randy Newman's "Losing You" (a solo for guitar and voice), "I Belong To The Band" by the Rev. Gary Davis, the tongue-in-cheek"Last Train" by Allen Toussaint, John Fogerthy's "Wrote A Song For Everyone", Little Milton's "We're Gonna Make It" (a male-female duet) and "Close To Heaven/ I'm On My Way To Heaven Anyhow" by Prof. Alex E. Bradford & Brad Pathway (the song, introduced by a male singer & choir in the first part, then sees lead vocals taken over by Mavis). As you can fathom from the title tracks, the lyrics of the songs are very much spiritual, and stylistically the music flows between Rhythm 'n' Blues (by its original terminology, not the modern perversity the music industry made of it by lack of new definitions) and a Gospel-flavoured R'n'B. And whomever the guitarist(s) were on this album show(s) a nice prolific restraint on his instrument, which makes the album interesting to open-minded guitar fans. Now we at Concrete Web were able to download this album as far back as...well, I'm not sure, but I've had the promo download in my possession since late May. Which has me wondering whether Anti- hasn't used a sneeky tactic to give hackers the opportunity to leak the album on the Internet...just to make some waves for the album at forehand. Whatever...when I first checked info on the net, there were,'t even songs off the album available at myspace.com/mavisstaplesmusic. On July 20 the album's title song was made available for (paid) download through iTunes and Amazon, and I suppose the song was put on the MySpace page around the same time. Meanwhile the John Fogherty cover was also posted. Check it out, then check out samples of the other songs at the album's page from trusted online sales websites (the two mentioned above, for instance). Maybe you'll understand why the music lover in me simply couldn't resist giving You Are Not Alone a perfect rating and a nomination into my year-lists! 98/100 Tony. |