dBPM / Anti Records To Release Pops Staples "Don't Lose This"
Don’t Lose This, an album of previously-unreleased music by the late Pops Staples with new production by Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, will be released on dBpm/Anti- Records on Feb. 17. The album features 10 songs, originally recorded and produced by Pops in 1999, but left unfinished at the time of his death in 2000.
The album, which also features newly recorded vocals by Mavis Staples, takes its title directly from the instruction Pops gave to his daughter as the two listened to the unfinished recording before his death: “Don’t lose this.”
Mavis didn’t, and in 2014 brought the tapes of her father’s last work to her recent collaborator, Tweedy, for completion. The two had previously teamed up on Mavis’ recent solo releases, One True Vine and the Grammy-winning You Are Not Alone.
The two worked together on Pops’ original recordings to highlight what Tweedy and many others view as Pops’ greatest strengths: his timeless voice and passionate guitar playing. The resulting album serves as a testament of Pops’ enduring talent, with an emotional delivery as complete as any previous recording.
Patriarch of the renowned Staple Singers, friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and musical contemporary of Muddy Waters, BB King and Howlin’ Wolf, Pops Staples was an integral force in American music until his passing 15 years ago.
Hear “Somebody Was Watching Me” from Don’t Lose This now at href="http://pitchfork.com/news/58021-pops-staples-posthumous-album-dont-lose-this-finished-by-mavis-staples-and-jeff-tweedy-to-be-released/">Pitchfork>.