Wilco took another step Wednesday toward becoming a self-contained music company when the Chicago band announced it was forming its own label, dBpm Records.

The label will be based in Easthampton, Mass., and run by the band's manager, Tony Margherita. Distribution will go through Anti- Records, an offshoot of Los Angeles punk powerhouse label Epitaph. In recent years Anti- has released albums by a wide range of acclaimed artists, including Tom Waits, Neko Case and Mavis Staples.

Staples’ 2010 album, “You are Not Alone,” was produced by Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy, who expressed his admiration for the label in an interview last year with the Los Angeles Times’ Todd Martens: "I think they’re pretty smart. I think they’re music lovers. I really respond to it. It’s very similar to the way I am. It’s a lot more like the way the world exists now than when I was growing up. There are less lines drawn in the sand between genres."

The move severs Wilco’s ties with the major-label system. All of Wilco’s previous albums since its 1995 debut, “A.M.,” have been released by labels affiliated with Warner Brothers: Reprise and Nonesuch. By creating its own label, Wilco brings virtually all facets of its operation in-house.
     
"Wilco's independent streak is well documented and nothing new," Margherita said in a statement released by the band, "and this is the culmination of what we've been working towards for the last 15 years. As we reached the end of our last deal, it felt like it was time for a change and the one thing we were certain we did not want to do was to sign another traditional recording agreement. Our discussions with Anti-, coming on the back of a great experience working with them on the Mavis Staples record, led us to thinking we might be able to come up with something quite different from the norm that could potentially be better for us and, frankly, a lot more interesting.”

The sextet is working on its next studio album in its rehearsal space on Chicago’s North Side. No release date has been set. The band’s 2011 tour dates include an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and a reprise of its Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Mass., on June 24-26.

greg@gregkot.com

    Wherever Mavis Staples goes, her sister Yvonne is not far away. While Mavis Staples radiates joy and determination, her older sibling looks on with the vigilant concern of a family matriarch.

   
It was no different at a packed and boisterous Park West on Saturday, where Mavis Staples headlined her first hometown show since the release of her latest album, the spine-tingling “You Are Not Alone.” The album finds the 71-year-old Staples still exploring new ground.

    On Saturday, she performed a Randy Newman ballad, “Losing You,” with shades of nuance and fragility that might’ve been beyond her a few decades ago. But she was invested in the song to the point where her eyes welled even as she bent notes and made them shiver, the inflections more reminiscent of a jazz ballad rather than a gospel plea. Rick Holmstrom’s guitar held her voice close, embroidering every line with silky reverb.

    When it was over, Mavis bowed her head, and Yvonne clapped in affirmation. “Oh, yes!” 

John Mellencamp: The singer-songwriter is coming off an intriguing series of albums emphasizing his songwriting and his debt to roots blues, country and folk, a direction that may shake up his shows from greatest-hits routine, 6:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday at Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St., $53.58, $84.37; $104.84, $138.18; ticketmaster.com.

Mavis Staples: The soul matriarch is enjoying one heck of a renaissance in the last decade, most recently recording an album with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, “You’re Not Alone,” that is among the best of her career, 8 p.m. Saturday at Park West, 322 W. Armitage, $30; etix.com.

Syl Johnson: The Chicago singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer is one of the unsung heroes of blues, soul and R&B of the last few decades, but a new box set by the Chicago-based Numero Group label gives him his due. For this appearance, he'll be performing some of his classics with a 27-piece band, 8 p.m. Saturday at the Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Av, $28; oldtownschool.tix.com.

greg@gregkot.com

Mavis Staples performs at 2010 Lollapalooza. (Terrence Antonio James, Tribune)

The story that most fans know about Mavis Staples’ rousing new album, “You Are Not Alone” (Anti), is that the singer recorded it with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who produced it and also wrote two songs.

But the most underappreciated aspect of it is that Tweedy didn’t leave his thumbprints all over the session. On the contrary, he not only let Mavis be Mavis, he ensured that she would record the album with her touring band: guitarist Rick Holmstrom, bassist Jeff Turmes and drummer Stephen Hodges.

“All the interviewers want to talk about Tweedy, and I can understand that, but the band is really an important part of this and most write-ups aren’t including that,” Staples says while sitting at a South Loop hotel lounge, with her sister Yvonne at her side. “The first thing Jeff said to me after he saw us play together was, ‘That band is good for you. They leave you space to be yourself.’”

The relationship with Holmstrom began around the time she was recording her 2007 masterpiece, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” with producer-guitarist Ry Cooder in California.

3.5 stars (out of 4)

With a series of fine albums and stirring live performances, Mavis Staples is enjoying one of the great late-career renaissances of recent times. Her 2007 album, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” reconnected with her storied past, as it updated the freedom-march songs that she sang with the Staple Singers at the height of the civil rights movement. With “You Are Not Alone” (Anti), Staples brings that spirit forward with a mix of gospel standards and newer songs, including two written specifically for her by producer Jeff Tweedy.

The Wilco songwriter astutely put Staples in the studio with her current road band, which came on board after “We’ll Never Turn Back” was recorded: guitarist Rick Holmstrom, bassist Jeff Turmes and drummer Stephen Hodges. They let the arrangements simmer and give Staples plenty of space to move; Holmstrom inserts terse commentary with his precision guitar fills and the rhythm section swings just behind the beat in the fashion of the Muscle Shoals, Ala., pros who backed the Staple Singers on their greatest recordings.

She sounds at home in this space, digging into the funky hosannas of Rev. Gary Davis’ “I Belong to the Band” and her late father Pops Staples’ “You Don’t Knock.” Heat shimmers off the surface of “I’m on My Way to Heaven,” determination busts through the bluesy seams of “We’re Gonna Make It.” The a cappella “Wonderful Savior” brings Staples back not only to her days in the church choir, but to her parents’ Chicago living room, where she learned to sing harmony with her siblings.

These restatements of strength would be enough to qualify “You Are Not Alone” as a fine album, a solid introduction to what has made Staples an American musical cornerstone since the ‘50s. But the real ear-openers are a renewed appreciation of Staples as a ballad singer, one who doesn’t have to shout to make an impact. In Randy Newman’s “Losing You,” accompanied by a lone guitar, she uses the full range of her vocal gifts, from a rumble to a sweetly despairing cry. And Tweedy’s folk-soul title track sums up what Staples has always been about: a voice of reassurance in troubled times.

greg@gregkot.com