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Mavis Staples

With her bold new album,”You Are Not Alone,” this legendary vocalist adds a remarkable new chapter to an historic career. Mavis Staples is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and a National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient. VH1 named her one of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, and Rolling Stone listed her as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

This project which is being released more than sixty years after she began singing with her ground-breaking family group, the Staple Singers is the follow-up to “We’ll Never Turn Back,” her acclaimed 2007 collection of songs associated with the civil rights movement, and to 2009’s Grammy-nominated live album “Hope at the Hideout.” It stakes out surprising new territory for Staples by matching her with producer Jeff Tweedy, a fellow Chicagoan who also happens to lead Wilco, perhaps the most respected band working in America today.

Tweedy first saw Staples and her band in 2008 at Chicago’s the Hideout when they recorded the live album Hope At The Hideout. After seeing that performance Tweedy knew he had to work with Staples. A little over a year later Tweedy, Staples and her band: Rick Holmstrom, guitar, vocals; Jeff Turmes, bass, vocals; Stephen Hodges, drums; Donny Gerrard, background vocals entered the studio to record You Are Not Alone.

Some of Tweedy’s choices, which would form the emotional core of “You Are Not Alone,” took Staples all the way back to her earliest memories. She recalls her father, the pioneering guitarist Roebuck “Pops” Staples, playing such traditional gospel songs as “Creep Along Moses” and “Wonderful Savior” on “those big ol’ 78 records” for the family. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “Those are songs I grew up with, I never thought I would be recording them.”

In addition, the singer and the producer settled on a few songs that were composed by her late father. Singing “Don’t Knock” and “Downward Road,” she says, transported her to the formative days of the Staple Singers, decades before such classics as “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself” topped the pop charts.

Along the way, songs by blues and soul icons (Allan Toussaint, Little Milton, and the Reverend Gary Davis) and by pop master craftsmen (Randy Newman and John Fogerty) were added to the mix. Staples expresses special fondness, however, for the original songs that Tweedy wrote for her during the recording of You Are Not Alone. “He would listen to my conversations, my words, and then feed off that,” she says. “The songs he wrote take me places I wouldn’t normally go. I wasn’t used to singing this way, but it felt really good.”

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Radio & Podcasts

New Releases Plus Summer Birthday Shoutouts To Lyricist Dorothy Fields, Mavis Staples, Akua Dixon, Hey Rim Jeon & More

Read "New Releases Plus Summer Birthday Shoutouts To Lyricist Dorothy Fields, Mavis Staples, Akua Dixon, Hey Rim Jeon & More" reviewed by Mary Foster Conklin


This broadcast includes new releases from Benny Benack III, Nanny Assis, Daryll Dobson and Heidi Martin, plus birthday shoutouts to lyricist Dorothy Fields, ((Hey Rim Jeon}}, Lauren Sevian, Akua Dixon, Gayelynn McKinney, Lauren Lee, Mavis Staples and Carol Morgan, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire. Playlist Deanna Witkowski “Gjon Mili Jam Session" from ...

34
Live Review

TD Ottawa Jazz Festival 2017

Read "TD Ottawa Jazz Festival 2017" reviewed by John Kelman


TD Ottawa Jazz Festival Ottawa, Canada June 23-26, 2017 Amongst the most significant challenges that face any festival is, as the gray and no-hair crowd continues to age, finding ways to cultivate and grow a younger audience. But when you're a Canadian festival, another major challenge is a simple fiscal fact: most artists--even those coming from farther afield like Europe and Asia--expect payment in American funds, and with the Canadian loonie currently resting at about 75 ...

260
Live Review

Mavis Staples + Stephanie McKay at Central Park Summerstage

Read "Mavis Staples + Stephanie McKay at Central Park Summerstage" reviewed by Ernest Barteldes


Mavis Staples + Stephanie McKay Central Park Summerstage New York, New York June 13, 2008

On what turned out to be a mild summer evening, Bronx-born Stephanie McKay took the stage at Central Park Summerstage's opening night with her 9-piece band comprising Manny Laine (drums), Eli Menezes (guitar), Codee (keyboards), Vicente Archer (bass) and vocalists (Lisala , Keith Fluit, Rene Trenier) with “Harlem," a funk-inflected blues number, quickly moving on to “Jackson Avenue," ...

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Recording

One Track Mind: Mavis Staples, "Last Train" (2010)

One Track Mind: Mavis Staples, "Last Train" (2010)

Source: Something Else!

By Nick DeRiso Over the course of a remarkable career, both with her family band the Staple Singers and as a solo artist, gospel-soul icon Mavis Staples has bravely explored the frustrations, sorrows and then joys of the African-American freedom fight. But, lest we forget, she can still rock it. “Last Train," from Staples' most recent album, proves the point. The song (originally the opener on Allen Toussaint's signature 1975 recording Southern Nights) is part of a diverse mixture of ...

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Performance / Tour

Soul / Gospel Legend Mavis Staples to Perform in Princeton, NJ

Soul / Gospel Legend Mavis Staples to Perform in Princeton, NJ

Source: All About Jazz

“The most underrated diva of the century...she has an almost superhuman ability to implant the pure power of emotion." -- Rolling Stone

Gospel / soul legend Mavis Staples, whose 2004 Alligator Records CD Have a Little Faith has been hailed by critics and fans alike as the best of her career, will bring her deeply soulful and inspirational music to Princeton for a live performance. Over the years, Mavis has recorded with a wide variety of musicians, from ...

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Performance / Tour

Mavis Staples to Celebrate New Release With Live Performance in Elmer, NJ

Mavis Staples to Celebrate New Release With Live Performance in Elmer, NJ

Source: All About Jazz

"The most underrated diva of the century...she has an almost superhuman ability to implant the pure power of emotion." — Rolling Stone

Gospel / soul legend Mavis Staples, will celebrate the release of her Alligator Records debut CD Have a Little Faith with a live performance in Elmer. Mavis has recorded with a wide variety of musicians, from her close friend Bob Dylan (with whom she was nominated for a 2003 Grammy© Award in the “Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals" ...

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Performance / Tour

Mavis Staples to Celebrate New Release With a Live Performance in Philadelphia

Mavis Staples to Celebrate New Release With a Live Performance in Philadelphia

Source: All About Jazz


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Event

Mavis Staples and Booker T. Join Earth Day Climate Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC

Mavis Staples and Booker T. Join Earth Day Climate Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC

Source: CHC Network

Mavis Staples and Booker T. will be performing at The Climate Rally, taking place on The National Mall in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 25, 2010, in conjunction with the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.

Other featured artists include Sting, John Legend, The Roots, Bob Weir, Q-Tip and more. Other notable figures attending include Reverend Jesse Jackson, James Cameron, Olympic gold medalist Billy Demong, and author Margaret Atwood.

The event calls on Congress to pass an effective and equitable climate ...

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