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Time Waits For No One Mavis Staples album
Warner Bros. Records
albumGet your house in order.
Gospel group The Staple Singers was formed in Chicago in 1952, comprising Roebuck “Pops” Staples and his children Cleotha, Pervis, Mavis and Yvonne. In 1965, The Staple Singers were signed to Epic Records and began a run of albums entering the US R&B chart top-20 and came to prominence in the civil rights movement. Their biggest hits were Respect Yourself in 1971, I’ll Take You There 1972 and Let’s Do It Again 1975, and were featured in a 1971 documentary titled Soul To Soul. But since 1985, The Staple Singers was no longer under a record label and Mavis was solo, in 1987 adding backing vocals for Nona Hendryx on Baby Go-Go a song Prince had written the previous year but contributed to Nona’s album.
So impressed was he by Mavis’ vocals on the track, Prince found a tape of the 1971 documentary and checked out The Staple Singers perform in concert at the Inglewood Forum in August 1987. Needing no more convincing, Prince signed her to his record label Paisley Park Records. Prince wrote and produced all but two of the tracks for Mavis Staples’ fourth solo album Time Waits For No One. The oldest of Prince’s tracks on the LP is Train, written during his recording sessions in July 1986 for The Dream Factory. Prince wrote Jaguar for Sheena Easton in January 1987 – recording it in the same session as La La La, He He Hee – intended for her album The Lover In Me, Prince instead kept the track and reworked it for Time Waits For No One. Also originating from that January session, Come Home was created for Meli’sa Morgan who in 1985 covered Prince’s Do Me, Baby, he rerecorded the track in 1988 and passed it to Mavis Staples instead.
None of the six Prince produced tracks were recorded with him and Mavis in the same studio. He provides backing vocals and plays some of the instruments in sessions recorded at Paisley Park Studios. Staples overdubbed her lead vocals at Ardent Studios in Memphis using producers Al Bell, Homer Banks and Lester Snell, the latter pair responsible for the LPs two non-Prince tracks. The recording sessions began in February 1988 and were complete that June, right into the lead-up of the Lovesexy Tour – Mavis putting in a guest appearance duetting with Prince in the concert on 9 July 1988 in Paris.
In 1990, Mavis was given a role in Prince’s Graffiti Bridge movie as well as appears in its accompanying soundtrack with her single Melody Cool. Later that year, she supported Time Waits For No One as the opening act on Prince’s Nude Tour. Prince regarded Mavis highly, looking up to her just as if she was his own mother. She and Prince put out her follow-up record The Voice in 1993. In 1999, Prince covered The Staples Singers 1970 track When Will We Be Paid?, coinciding with the year the group was deservedly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mavis won the Grammy award (Best Americana Album) for her eighth solo album You Are Not Alone in 2010.
Performers
- Vocals
- Mavis Staples
- All instruments
- Prince
- Drums
- Sheila E Time Waits For No One
- Bass Guitar
- Levi Seacer Jr. Interesting
- Guitar
- Miko Weaver Interesting
- Keyboards
- Matt "Dr" Fink Interesting
- Lester Snell Train
- Saxophone
- Eric Leeds Interesting, Come Home and Train
- Trumpet
- Atlanta Bliss Interesting, Come Home and Train
- Backing vocals
- Homer Banks Interesting, Come Home and Train
- William Brown Interesting, Come Home and Train
Data
- Producer
- Prince
- Label
- Paisley Park Records
- Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records
- Cover/Design
- Greg Corman and Kim Champagne
- Released
- 37 years ago on 24 May 1989
- Running Time
- 39:11
- US Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- UK Chart Peak
- Did not chart
- Orig. Formats
-
Tracklist
- Interesting [feat. Prince] (4:26)
- 20th Century Express (3:52) 2
- Come Home [feat. Prince] (5:21)
- Jaguar [feat. Prince] (5:31)
- [feat. Prince] (4:25)
- The Old Songs (4:51) 2
- I Guess I'm Crazy (4:12)
- Time Waits For No One [feat. Prince and Sheila E] (5:51) 1
Released as a single
1 Co-written with Mavis Staples.
2 Written by Homer Banks and Lester Snell.
Supporting tour
Time Waits For No One review
Thank god for Mavis Staples, her voice is as sweet as it is powerful, so good in fact it could rival Aretha Franklin. Time Waits For No One is the fourth solo album in Mavis’ career and was her first with Prince. He wrote six of the album’s eight tracks and was one of his first projects recorded at his newly operational Paisley Park Studios. Her voice is so dexterous you could be forgiven to believe that’s Tina Turner in Come Home. What is interesting is that Prince’s full Sign O’ The Times touring band play on Interesting. The album closes with the title track and its best song Time Waits For No One, the paring of Mavis’ voice and Prince’s key changes is purely divine.
The DNA Prince’s Batman shines through in Jaguar. Perhaps the LP’s most noteworthy song is Sign O’ The Times outtake Train which Mavis covers on this album to give its first official outing until Prince’s original was released in 2020 with the Sign O’ The Times remaster. The two non-Prince tracks are also worthy, writing combo Homer Banks and Lester Snell’s 20th Century Express has that warming Lion King feel, and The Old Songs plunges you right back into an 80s movie soundtrack. The album is a charm and certainly worth tracking down.
Time Waits For No One is rated 3.5 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.
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