Mavis Staples - We Get By

Powerhouse singer Mavis Staples teams with writer/producer Ben Harper on 12th album

Legendary powerhouse singer Mavis Staples returns with her 12th studio album produced and written by Ben Harper. Backed by Mavis' critically acclaimed live band, We Get By features 10 songs of longing, strength, and spirituality, presented with simplicity, grit and sublime beauty. Highlights include the buoyant, "Anytime," the cathartic, "Change," and the title track, an uplifting duet with Ben Harper.

Mavis Staples celebrates her 80th birthday July 10, 2019 with a year-long celebration of her music and career. Harper's conscious, expressive writing and thoughtful production captures Staples at this moment in time as she offers up love, hope and history during a politically divided era.

"These songs are delivering such a strong message," Staples said. She looks to the formidable and progressive opening track "Change" as an example of the strength in the words she is belting. "We truly need to make a change if we want this world to be better."

Of course, collaborating with Harper for an album's worth of new music is part of a larger trend in Staples' work. An inductee of both the Blues and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Staples has famously collaborated with Prince, Bob Dylan, The Band, Curtis Mayfield, Nick Cave, Neko Case, Arcade Fire, Hozier and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, just to name a few.

The album's cover is a powerful photograph titled "Outside Looking In" by American photographer, author, musician and director Gordon Parks. It is part of a series of photographs published in Life as a photo essay titled "The Restraints: Open and Hidden," which helped expose Americans to the effects of racial segregation.

Side 1

Change

Anytime

We Get By (feat. Ben Harper)

Brothers And Sisters

Heavy On My Mind

Sometime

Side 2

Never Needed Anyone

Stronger

Chance On Me

Hard To Leave

One More Change

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