In her sixty-plus years as a gospel and soul singer, Mavis Staples has rarely been lacking in buoyant confidence.
  She has the physical muster to stretch her voice from exasperated whisper to jubilant shout in the span of a single bar, but her songs rise on the effervescence of the little counter-sung grunts that she tosses in on the way ("ah-HUH!”); her body of work is, almost without exception, in a constant state of exaltation, completely focused on God, on others, and on positive social change with a singularity of vision and loosely worn sincerity that would seem cloying coming from just about anyone else. And when she breaks her songs down to their most tender and vulnerable, she does so as a minister: She wants to get it through to you that you are not alone.
   And yet it’s still no surprise to see Staples working so comfortably with Jeff Tweedy, who produced One True Vine, as well as 2010’s You Are Not Alone. Tweedy, for all of his grumbling, has finally shrugged off his art-damaged mantle and started to become comfortable in his role as Americana folk hero. Tweedy’s God — or, at least, the God of his lyrics — is never as clear as Staples’, though, and religious faith seems to be the kind of thing one has to fight oneself in order to achieve... aquariumdrunkard.com

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"I looked in the mirror, what did I see?/A brand new image of the same old me,” declares Mavis Staples, reprising "I Like the Things about Me,” a civil-rights anthem written 40 years ago by her late father, Pops.
   The septuagenarian gospel singer continues her late-career roll on "One True Vine” (Anti), the latest in a series of releases that is indeed fashioning "a brand new image of the same old me.” If for a couple of decades she was taken for granted, shoved to the margins of a culture that she and her family, the Staple Singers, once helped define, Staples is reaffirming her place as one of the great voices of the last half-century...

...The new version is sparse and tough, channeling the sound of the Staples’ in their first, late ‘50s incarnation on Vee-Jay Records, and infusing it with a modern edge. Producer Jeff Tweedy doesn’t try to mimic Pops’ haunting, reverb-drenched guitar tone, but instead chops up the syncopated beats and lets them kick up clouds of feedback. His teenage son, drummer Spencer Tweedy, keeps the rhythm lean, leaving plenty of room for Mavis to interact with her backing vocalists. 
  It’s one of the highlights of an album stripped of fluff. Staples keeps her tone conversational, as if she were addressing a small group of friends in her living room. The atmosphere and the pace are deliberate, solemn, a touch reserved, with acoustic instruments and voices dominating... ~Greg Kot, chicagotribune.com