One True Vine (Boulder hotel version)

+ Chit-Chat Check-In #84: Mavis’s Birthday Party

Audio transcript

Reporting from Boulder, Colorado, where I woke up to Christmas-like conditions this morning, and where I’m playing Bluebird Music Festival tomorrow.

On Thursday night, I joined Mavis and a crowd of her friends at her 85th birthday celebration show in Los Angeles. Don Was asked me to play “One True Vine,” and told me it was one of his favorite songs. (Is that like kissing and telling? To tell you that a legend of music considers one of my songs favorite-worthy? Whatever, this is the Starship, I’ll allow it.)

It was wonderful to be part of such a beautiful show. It was wonderful to celebrate Mavis. We can never celebrate Mavis enough. It’s impossible to over-celebrate Mavis Staples.

The version you hear below is a subdued hotel version. Longtime Starship listeners know I always feel inhibited singing songs in hotels. A Midwestern shyness I can’t shake out of me. But rest assured, the version I sang at Mavis’s party made Mavis and Bonnie Raitt cry. I think that was a good thing, maybe it was bad. I apologized to both of them just in case.

OxO—Jeffy

It’s beginning to look a lot like, um… Earth Day.

This Week in Wilco, Etc.

1996 / April 17: Golden Smog plays the legendary 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, and in the 22-song set, they cover Ringo Starr’s “Photograph,” Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone,” and the Classics IV song “Spooky."

2024 / April 18: Jeff makes a special stop at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles to help Mavis celebrate her 85^th birthday. Other artists paying tribute include Jackson Browne, Black Pumas, Chris Stapleton, Norah Jones, Michael McDonald, and many more.

2021 / April 19: On The Tweedy Show #169, Jeff debuts the song “All Across the World,” which is later released on Wilco’s Cruel Country.

One True Vine (Boulder hotel version)