Mavis Staples & Jeff Tweedy, “You Are Not Alone” (acoustic)
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MusicSeptember 10th, 2010 • 2:02 pm
Soul legend Mavis Staples’s new album titled You Are Not Alone is coming out on ANTI- Records on September 14. It’s produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame.
Here’s a great recording of Mavis and Jeff playing an acoustic version of the title song, on ANTI-‘s YouTube channel:
“You Are Not Alone” (acoustic)
As a long-time Prince fan, I am of course more than familiar with Mavis Staples’s œuvre (and not just her Paisley Park period either). And I have also more recently become a big Wilco fan. (Their latest album titled Wilco (the album) is fantastic.)
So I think it’s great news that they have been working together. If the video above is any indication, it’s going to be another terrific Mavis Staples album, on par with her excellent collaboration with Ry Cooder on We’ll Never Turn Back.
I like Mavis’s output on Prince’s Paisley Park label—including the two albums Time Waits For No One and The Voice, sadly both out of print—but I think it’s a real shame that some of her best recordings with Prince, including the legendary studio outtake “God Is Alive,” remain unreleased to this day.
It feels like the prevalent circumstances at the time never allowed the collaboration between Prince and Mavis Staples to reach its full potential. I for one am delighted that she’s been able to continue recording with various people and still has the possibility to add to her already fantastic body of work. And I am very much looking forward to this new album with Jeff Tweedy. I am glad that, in spite of the apparently dire state of the recording industry as a whole, such music is still being made and being released.