Mavis Hits Lofty Heights

A few weeks ago I picked up a new CD that, somewhat to my surprise, will likely end up being one of my favorite albums of 2010. It’s Mavis Staples’ You Are Not Alone.

I’ve long been familiar with Staples’ status as a major part of the legendary Staple Singers family ensemble that brought the spirit of southern gospel to the Civil Rights Movement, and with it her soulful vocal prowess. But I can’t claim to know anything about her career since those halcyon days. And, while I’ve always appreciated good gospel music, I’m not a dedicated or knowledgeable fan of the genre.

I do relish the soulfulness, rich choral funkiness and bluesy tinge of the best gospel – and, to a degree, even some of the righteous devotion and, conversely, unintentional humor. The deep rhythm and ecstatically powerful vocal expulsions of artists like Aretha Franklin and a few others is, undeniably, music to be reckoned with. Yet, too much of the genre – that is, mediocre gospel – leaves me unimpressed musically and put off by the heavy-handed, overly-pious sanctimoniousness of the subject matter.

That said, this new Mavis Staples album is pure gospel soul; highly listenable and, often, truly inspirational. In short, it’s brilliant.

I admit I was motivated to buy this CD, not because of a compelling interest in Staples, but rather because of Jeff Tweedy’s involvement as producer, composer, arranger and musical accompanist (I’m a long-time Wilco fan). While Tweedy’s fingerprints are evident on You Are Not Alone, this is no au courant star-turn charity gig for a past-prime legend. Far from it. For the most part, Tweedy lays back and lets Mavis’ soulful sensibilities light the way.

Besides an obvious respect for the artist’s skill and an appreciation of the power of gospel at its best, what Tweedy brings to the affair is an astute sense of song-craft and a hint of Americana. The result is a distinctive suggestion of some of The Band’s best recordings – overtly on a few tracks and subtly on the album as a whole. It’s deep gospel, but with a pronounced dash of blues, soulful R & B and alt-country twang. So, regardless of how you feel about the pronounced Christian gospel vibe, the grooves, hooks and vocals are irresistible on this simple, yet richly nuanced CD.

A brief interview and stripped-down rehearsal duet with Mavis and Tweedy.

The opening track is an upbeat gospel take on Pops Staples’ tune “Don’t Knock.” The strong backing vocals elicit comparisons with Aretha’s 1960s’ soul hits, while also suggesting a female version of The Jordanaires.

The Band references emerge in full force on the Tweedy-penned title track, which really sounds like Levon & Co. doing gospel (they did dabble, you may recall, on songs like “I Shall Be Released,” and, lest we forget, The Staple Singers were among the legion of legends invited to celebrate The Last Waltz).

If there are any Wilco references embedded in this record, “In Christ There Is No East or West” – musically at least – is the most obvious. The pairing of the tinkling keyboards (celeste and mellotron courtesy of Wilco’s Pat Sansone) and picked acoustic guitar lines (by Tweedy) are, not surprisingly, strongly reminiscent of the Wilco sound. The lyrical message of devotion, racial-harmony and forgiveness are well-meaning, if a bit contrived sounding, though they’re delivered with catchy choruses and some of the album’s most potent melodies.

There are three tracks on You Are Not Alone on which the band ramps up the blues-rock grit. The upbeat bluesy gospel of “Creep Along Moses” is driven by some nasty electric guitar and slinky slide riffs that creep right along with old Mo’ as he’s nudged along by Mavis and some great background vocals. Then there’s Allen Toussaint’s “Last Train,” which features some deft electric guitar melodies during the verses, accompanied by some delightfully-humorous, soulful “choo-choo’s” from the female chorus. Finally, there’s “Only the Lord Knows,” with its solid, funky R & B groove and catchy vocal that is part devotional and part put-you-in-your-place kiss off. “Only the Lord knows, and he ain’t you,” indeed!

One of the few departures from the various gospel themes is the slow blues lament of “Losing You,” a sorrowful, heartfelt ode Mavis sings about the loss of a loved one: “The sun stopped shining, it rained all the time. It did set me back some; oh, but I made it through. But I'll never get over losing you.”

In contrast, the pace picks up again with an upbeat rendition of the Rev. Gary Davis’ “I Belong to the Band.” It’s a rockin’, clapping-driven, country-folk gospel of the ilk dabbled in by Bruce Springsteen with his Seeger sessions CDs, The Blasters on “Samson and Delilah” or Delaney & Bonnie on “Poor Elijah.” It’s one of this strong album’s best tunes.

The Band influence comes to the fore again on another of the album’s standout tracks: “Wrote a Song for Everyone.” Mavis shines with a vocal that recalls “The Weight” in an emotive performance supported by majestically interwoven instrumentation. Everything from the lyrics and vocal phrasing to the melodic lead guitar lines and the overall style, tone and arrangement recall the (mostly) Canadian road warriors in their prime.

Later in the CD, an added dimension emerges as male vocalist Donny Gerrard joins Mavis for a couple of duets. The first, “We’re Gonna Make It,” is an optimistic R & B tune that, to my ear at least, ever-so-subtly recalls The Temptation’s “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” There’s some snazzy staccato rhythm guitar licks, shuffling drums and a powerfully sustained organ that propels the tune along.

Despite all the songs having a definite gospel, soul or R & B feel, the album offers many tangents within the framework, not the least of which is the perfectly executed a cappella treatment of “Wonderful Savior,” in which Mavis determinably leads the glory-inspired chorus: “I am his, and he is mine!”

The album closes with the slow blues of “Too Close / On My Way to Heaven,” the first part of which starts with a lengthy blues vocal by Gerrard leading into a chorus-backed duet with Staples and resonant blues guitar accompaniment before segueing into a reverential nod to Pops Staples’ inspirational gospel.

Aretha should make an album like this, if the “Queen of Soul” still has it in her and can find as sympathetic a collaborator. You Are Not Alone makes it obvious that Mavis still does, as well as showing what savvy, supportive and skilled helping hands (and ears) can do for an accomplished but dormant talent.

This record is not only great Sunday morning listening, as a any decent gospel recording should be, it’s great any time listening.

Fire Up the Video

The new Arcade Fire video for “We Used to Wait” off of their recent noteworthy CD, The Suburbs, has been getting some acclaim as a step forward in video technology and audience engagement. The reason being that it taps into media trends and hyper-consciousness about consumer-empowerment in the all-important realms of information and entertainment (I refuse to write “infotainment”). Heck, this single track, web-based video even has its own title (“The Wilderness Downtown”) and production credits.

The reason for the buzz is that this new video incorporates Google Earth images to “personalize” the narrative with depictions of the neighborhoods of our youthful years. Take a look. Enter your address and see what it reveals. What do you think? Was it what you expected? An accurate representation, conjuring up memories of yore?

Personally, I was more intrigued with the idea, than impressed with the execution – which, while amazing in some ways when you really think about it, was also ridiculously rudimentary. I was disappointed because (no fault of the band, Google or the producers) what was rendered was not a time machine-empowered representation of my youthful environs some 30-40 years ago (Google Earth was merely a sparkle in some scientists’ eye back then), but instead a modern-day overgrown, barely distinguishable clump of trees and vaguely familiar strips of woodchips lining the roadway. Suffice to say, we lived in the woods ... and it’s still woodsy today!

Nevertheless, it was, in fact, “The Suburbs,” albeit borderline rural ones, and much of the Arcade Fire’s new thematic work resonates with the experiences of my young neighbors and I growing up in the ’70s. The CD is worth checking out, especially if you like thoughtful, theatrical, somewhat orchestrated modern pop with some undeniably catchy hooks.

There’s no doubt, the video is trendsetting (generally, if not specifically). And, beyond the satellite and Internet-enabled techno-gimmickry, its multi-screen segmentation is creatively – if not a bit schizophrenically – implemented.

The whole concept reminds me of the music biz’s first forays into consumer-empowerment about 10 or 15 years ago when Peter Gabriel released some music that somehow enabled listeners to create their own mixes. (I never acquired any of those, so I can’t provide informed comment on them.) There was also Robert Plant and The Strange Sensation’s “Shine It All Around” single in 2005, which enabled proactive listeners to create their own rudimentary remixes via a “U-MYX Format.” This was a simplistic program included on the CD that allowed you to drop out selected instrument tracks (lead vocals, baking vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) from the mix for part or all of the song. Thus, at your own discretion, you could hear the a capella version, the instrumental version or the pseudo dub-rhythm version of the song.

... All small steps on the continuum of personal empowerment that pervades media today. It’s only a matter of time, I suspect, before we’ll be holographically projecting ourselves (in real time, no less) into our video entertainment.

“A Secret Life” ... Unearthed!

I just stumbled across this wonderful, nostalgia-inducing video clip of The Raindogs at the beloved old Bunratty’s club in Allston, Mass. (OK, it was pretty much a dive, but a fondly remembered one, nonetheless, in that I saw plenty of great music there back in the day). The date was May 19, 1989, and I was there, enjoying this performance by one of my favorite local Boston bands, with my future wife and one of my best friends.

I saw The Raindogs play around town dozens and dozens of times between 1988 and when they broke up in 1993 or so, and this show was one of my favorites. I know because I recorded a bunch of them, and I’ve listened to this live tape more than any of the others over the years. (In fact, I recognized this clip right away from the familiar to me, but otherwise unique, introduction that singer/songwriter/guitarist Mark Cutler bestowed upon the song that night.) I gave Cutler a copy of my audio recording a few years ago, but I never suspected any video of this night existed.

I remember this Bunratty’s gig as being a raucously energetic show. The crowd was really into it, especially at the end, and the band delivered a polished, yet inspired, performance.

This song, “A Secret Life,” came about midway through the 17 song set. It was one of the evening’s slower, more low-key moments. But it nicely exemplifies Cutler’s poignant songcraft and provides a fleeting remembrance of late Scottish fiddle master Johnny Cunningham’s seemingly effortless and always spot-on playing, not to mention guitarist Emerson Torrey’s essential and all-too-easily-taken-f0r-granted backing vocals.

A couple of songs after this one, the band cranked things up and let loose with abandon during the set’s finale. A momentous, increasingly unleashed trio of tunes started with “Dirty Town” and segued into “Carry Your Cross” and, finally, “Time Stand Still,” during which Cutler screamed his throat raw while the rest of the band fueled the frenzy behind him.

So this video hit me as a pleasant blast from the past that, despite being a bit dated around the edges, still resounds nicely today … as good songs, well-performed always do.

And now, I can’t help but wonder: Is there video for the rest of this performance?

Blinded by the Light

Besides apparently wreaking havoc on migratory birds’ flight patterns, the increasing “light pollution” associated with the expansive suburbanization of America (as starkly depicted in the NASA photo above) has also compromised our appreciation of the heavens. Nighttime stargazing just isn’t what it used to be – a diminishment noticeable just in my lifetime. And though I live in a suburb 40 miles from the closest big city, being on the Eastern Seaboard, it doesn’t really matter, there is never the black velvety darkness through which celestial gems glisten in the night.

Where I live, despite having the darkness of the ocean nearby to the east, the night sky ranks only about a 4.5 as measured on the graphic above. That’s why it’s such a joy to get up to the remote environs of Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, once in a while. There one can enjoy an unadulterated view of the nighttime sky ... No. 1, indeed!

R.I.P., Solomon Burke

What a presence and voice he had!