This is exactly a time for when we need Mavis Staples

Barenaked Ladies release a second album for 2017

MAVIS STAPLES “IF ALL I WAS WAS BLACK” (ANTI)

Mavis Staples has every right to be pissed. As a member of family band the Staple Singers in the ’50s and ’60s, she performed at Martin Luther King rallies and provided a soundtrack of uplift to the civil rights movement.

Sixty years later, the political climate looks even worse than it did back then. And yet here she is: 78 years old and addressing the divisions in her country by talking about love and empathy and echoing the words of Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high.” At a time of a serious empathy deficit, Staples wants to love her enemies, to admit to evil thoughts in herself, to bring people together.

This new album was written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who has worked extensively with Staples in the last seven years, and who says he didn’t write a single lyric that he didn’t feel Staples would write herself. On her last record, Staples had songs commissioned from a dozen different songwriters; none of them understood her the way Tweedy does. Their relationship continues to pay musical dividends: Staples sounds relaxed and in full control, as she did on the high-water mark “One True Vine,” even if some of the electric guitar solos underneath her here veer toward Wilco’s Velvet Underground side.

“If All I Was Was Black” is a decidedly political record, it’s also a reconciliatory one — which seems almost quaint amid the daily outrage cycle. But this is exactly a time when we need elders like Staples to see us through the depths, to see the long game. “No time for tears,” she sings. “We’ve got work to do.”

Stream: “No Time For Crying,” “Little Bit,” “Who Told You That?”

BARENAKED LADIES “FAKE NUDES” (WARNER)

Not only is this Barenaked Ladies’ 12th album, it’s the second one they’ve released in 2017. The first was a collaboration with a cappella group the Persuasions, which worked not just because of the vocal performances but because the band seemed so relaxed and playful, not unlike their still-entertaining live shows. On “Fake Nudes” — surely the best album title of 2017 — the band continues their “grinning streak” with producer Gavin Brown, who’s helmed the third phase of the band’s career with aplomb.

Brown balances the band’s natural talents with more obvious bids at a top 40 single, which are thankfully kept to a minimum, because “Lookin’ Up” is a definite low in the Ladies’ catalogue — even lower than “One Week.” “What’s the cost in trying to figure out who we are?” asks singer Ed Robertson on one of the stronger tracks here, “Navigate.”

What the Ladies do best these days are the midtempo pop songs that steer more toward pop-country, with Kevin Hearn’s colourful synths painting around the edges. “Canada Dry” panders slightly to the deficit left by Gord Downie’s departure from this country’s tower of song, but it’s also the one song here likely to make it into live sets for years to come. Hearn’s songs are again a highlight; he has as many songwriting credits here as Robertson. The biggest surprise is when Tanya Tagaq shows up to offer uncharacteristically subtle touches to Hearn’s “Flying Dreams.”

Stream: “Canada Dry,” “Navigate,” “Flying Dreams”

HUGH CHRISTOPHER BROWN “PACEM” (WOLFE ISLAND RECORDS)

Canadian music fans of a certain vintage know him simply as Chris Brown; one half of a duo with Kate Fenner, founding member of ’90s soul orchestra Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, auxiliary keyboardist with The Tragically Hip and Barenaked Ladies. The professional name change ensures there’s no confusion with a certain R&B star with a rap sheet.

Speaking of rap sheets, this Chris Brown has spent time behind bars lately; with the Pros and Cons Project, making music with inmates in Pittsburgh Institution near Kingston, Ont. That Brown would be involved in such an endeavour is hardly surprising: his entire lyrical output for the last 35 years has been about empathy, and its manifestations in both the macro and micro views. “Cynicism is an early death,” he sings on an older song resurrected here (a song that deserves to be sung by Mavis Staples — can someone get on that?), and it’s a theme that runs through all his work.

This is Brown’s first proper solo recording in years, and to make it he drew extensively from the community he’s cultivated on Wolfe Island, where he moved from New York City in the last decade. There, he draws from local Kingston artists, old Toronto friends and new discoveries, including the Indiana singer David Corley, whose Brown-produced record has built a cult audience in Europe for the late-blooming performer. “Pacem” is a showcase for Brown’s new crew and his production style, too, based out of an old post office on Wolfe Island.

Part of what has always made Brown an MVP on the scene is his generosity, and on what is ostensibly a solo record he often surrenders vocals to his peers; Fenner, Corley, Suzanne Jarvie, and, on the opening track “Prayer of St. Ignatius” (“The Prayer for Generosity”), classical singer Sherry Zbrovsky. It’s the most musically diverse collection Brown has ever put out, and it’s a welcome return from a songwriter who has a lot to give.

Hugh Christopher Brown will be performing at the Rivoli in Toronto on Friday, Nov. 24, along with the Stephen Stanley Band, whose new record was produced by Brown.

Stream: “Here Comes My Love,” “Love the World,” “The Great Unknowing”