POP STAPLES
''DON'T LOSE THIS''
FEBRUARY 17 2015
38:34
1 Somebody Was Watching 04:03
2 Sweet Home 04:13
3 No News Is Good News 04:33
4 Love On My Side 03:59
5 Friendship 04:03
6 Nobody's Fault But Mine 03:03
7 The Lady's Letter 02:16
8 Better Home 04:46
9 Will the Circle Be Unbroken 04:03
10 Gotta Serve Somebody 03:28
REVIEW
By Nick Deriso
Fifteen years after his death, Pops Staples returns — as sweetly vibrant, as light-filled and meaningful, as deeply soulful as ever — on “Somebody Was Watching,” an unearthed track to be included on the forthcoming Don’t Lose This.
Daughter Mavis Staples, who co-produced the original 1999 sessions, completed the song with Jeff Tweedy, the Wilco band leader who has collaborated on a pair of her more recent albums. She says, back then, they had gathered to make another Staple Singers album, but instead decided to let Pops Staples take the lead. The tapes, however, sat dormant after his passing.
Dormant, but never far from Mavis Staples’ mind. She says her father, upon hearing the unfinished music, encouraged her to look after this music, to make sure — when the time was right — that it was released. And not, as this new album title reminds, to lose it.
“Somebody Was Watching,” and Don’t Lose This, will finally see release on February 17, 2015, as with Mavis’ last two albums, via Anti- and the Wilco imprint dBpm. Her relationship with Tweedy, who produced both 2010’s You Are Not Alone and 2013’s One True Vine, thankfully brought her back to the Pops Staples tapes, and to this song’s smartly appropriate theme.
“Somebody Was Watching” finds Pops Staples singing with his signature hope-filled gusto about the blessings that seem to come out of nowhere in our lives. Same here.
Mavis Staples recorded new vocals to finish out the track, with Tweedy on bass and his son Spencer on drums. (The latter two are also in the offshoot band Tweedy.) Tweedy did some secondary production work, too, but the “Somebody Was Watching” belongs to — will always belong to — the ageless Roebuck “Pops” Staples. He never got enough credit for weaving country-blues guitar into the Staple Singers’ essential gospel gumbo, either.
You’ll be glad Mavis didn’t lose this.
MORE REVIEW
By banquetrecords.com
A long-awaited posthumous album from the very influencial Pops Staples of The Staple Singers!
In 1990, Roebuck “Pops” Staples recorded a final session, capping an illustrious career as leader and patriarch of the Staples Singers. Unfinished at the time of his passing in 2000, the tapes went to his daughter, Mavis, who then waited for the right opportunity to finish the recording in the spirit Pops intended. When she began her series of remarkable collaborations with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, starting with 2010’s You Are Not Alone and continuing with 2013’s One True Vine, Mavis knew she had found the person to work on her father’s record. Mavis Staples: “I chose this title because these were the words my father said to me as he gave me the tape of his final recordings. He was sick and lying in bed and asked me to play the record for him in his room. After listening to it, he called me to his room again. He was weak, but he handed me the tape and in a soft voice said ‘Don’t lose this, Mavis.’ While Pops’ voice and guitar sounded so good on the original recordings [and remain untouched on this record], I knew the songs needed something else to really come to life. Something special. Pops deserved that. So I called on my dear friend Jeff Tweedy to fill out the tracks around Pops and he’s helped to craft this beautiful album.”