Tag: The Staple Singers

Staple Singers – I’ll Take You There

It doesn’t get better than this. I was very fortunate to see Mavis Staples in 2016 open up for Bob Dylan. She was open to the audience and told us that she dated “Bobby” back in the day and thought the world of him. It was a typical hot humid June day in Nashville at a now-defunct amphitheater. She commanded the stage and that voice filled the summer air.

Mavis Staples and Bob Dylan

Dylan and Staples first got together during the Newport Folk Festival, possibly in 1963 — though the year was not mentioned. The festival was held annually from 1959 to 1969, barring two years of inactivity in 1961 and 1962. Mavis Staples said, “We would write letters back and forth because we wouldn’t see each other until we were on a festival together. And we’d smooch!”

It has been said that Dylan proposed to Mavis back in 1963. She turned him down because she thought she was too young. Mavis Staple recently said:  “I often think about what would have happened if I’d married Bobby, though. If we’d had some little plum-crushers, how our lives would be. The kids would be singing now, and Bobby and I would be holding each other up.”

This song sounds spiritual and very close to a gospel song. There is a reason for that…it came out of a tragic event. Al Bell wrote the song. He signed the band to Stax Records and was an executive and co-owner of Stax Records. His little brother was shot and killed. After returning from the funeral he wrote this song. He said “I went out in the backyard in my father’s home. He had an old school bus there parked that was not running. I went back there and sat on the hood of that bus thinking about all that was happening. And all of a sudden, I hear this music in my head. And I heard these lyrics: ‘I know a place, ain’t nobody worried, ain’t nobody crying, and ain’t no smiling faces lying to the races, I’ll take you there.’ I heard it, and I heard the music. And it wouldn’t leave, it stayed there. kept trying to write other verses, but I couldn’t. Nothing worked – there was nothing left to say.”

It’s a beautiful song that builds hope that there is something better will be in the future. The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #20 in the UK, and #21 in Canada. The song was released in 1972 on Stax Records. It surprises me that it didn’t go much higher in the charts.

The first time I noticed who the Staple Singers were…was in the Last Waltz singing a beautiful version of The Weight. I started to look for more by them and I realized this song, which I knew from childhood, was them. That’s how some of us learn about new music…like a giant tree with roots and a lot of musical branches. With me, it started with the Beatles > Dylan > The Band > The Staple Singers. I found most of the music I like from The Beatles, Stones, and The Who. I followed their influences and what came after.

Mavis Staples:  “I sing, ‘Play it, Barry, play your piano…,’ that was Barry Beckett. Then ‘Help me, Daddy…,’ and that was my father playing the guitar. My dad plays that solo, none of that stuff was rehearsed. The only thing that was rehearsed was the verse, but all of the other stuff that I’m doing just came to me in the studio. It wasn’t written down, it all comes from what you feel. And God blessed me to be able to do that. It comes from inside me.”

Al Bell: “Mavis couldn’t get into it, she couldn’t feel it, so I stood there on the floor and tried to sing it to the guys, as they got the music and they got into it. After getting it down, later on, I came back and sat with Mavis and, after a while, she started feeling it and giving in to that rhythm. Of course, she took it to heights that only a Mavis Staples can take it. Nobody else could do it justice, and I guess it was supposed to be that way.”

“Ill Take You There”

Oh mmm I know a place
Ain’t nobody cryin’
Ain’t nobody worried
Ain’t no smilin’ faces
Mmm, no no
Lyin’ to the races
Help me, come on, come on
Somebody, help me now (I’ll take you there)
Help me, ya’all (I’ll take you there)
Help me now (I’ll take you there)
Oh! (I’ll take you there)
Oh! Oh! Mercy! (I’ll take you there)
Oh, let me take you there (I’ll take you there)
Oh-oh! Let me take you there! (I’ll take you there)
Play your, play your piano now
All right Ah do it do it
Come on now
Play on it, play on it
Daddy daddy daddy
Ooh, Lord
All right now
Baby, easy now
Now, come on, little lady
All right
Dum-dum-dum-dum
Sock it, sock it
Ah, oh, oh!
I know a place, ya’all (I’ll take you there)
Ain’t nobody cryin’ (I’ll take you there)
Ain’t nobody worried (I’ll take you there)
No smilin’ faces (I’ll take you there) 
Uh-uh (Lyin’ to the races) (I’ll take you there)
Oh, no Oh! (I’ll take you there)
Oh oh oh! (I’ll take you there)
Mercy now! (I’ll take you there)
I’m callin’ callin’ callin’ mercy (I’ll take you there)
Mercy mercy! (I’ll take you there)
Let me (I’ll take you there)
Oh oh! I’ll take you there (I’ll take you there)
Oh oh oh oh Wanna take you there! (I’ll take you there) Just take me by the hand
Let me (I’ll take you there)
Let me, let me, let me lead the way
Oh! (I’ll take you there)
Let me take you there (I’ll take you there)
Let me take you there! (I’ll take you there)
Ain’t no smilin’ faces (I’ll take you there)
Up in here, lyin’ to the races (I’ll take you there)
You oughta, you gotta gotta come let me, let me (I’ll take you there)
Take you, take you, take you over there (I’ll take you there) Ooh! Oh! Oh! All right (I’ll take you there)
Oh-oh! All right! (I’ll take you there)
Oh! Oh! (I’ll take you there)
Mmmm ah Oh! Yeah! (I’ll take you there)
Whoa! (I’ll take you there)
Let me lead the way (I’ll take you there)

Staple Singers – Respect Yourself

The last time I saw Bob Dylan, Mavis Staples opened up the show. She gave a great performance and just knowing the history she represented was incredible. I remember the song “I’ll Take You There” when I was a kid but didn’t really start listening to the Staple Singers until I saw them on the Last Waltz playing The Weight.

This song peaked at #2 in the Billboard 100 in 1971.

The first two Stax albums The Staple Singers recorded were with Steve Cropper of the Stax house band, but by August 1971, when they recorded “Respect Yourself,” they were working with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section at their studios in Alabama.

At this time, the Staple Singers were recording what they called “message music,” and ads for the Be Altitude: Respect Yourself album billed it as “The message that rock music is still looking for.”

 

From Songfacts

The Staple Singers signed with the Memphis Soul label Stax Records in 1968, where they found success after languishing at Epic. “Respect Yourself” was written by the Stax songwriter Mack Rice and one of their artists, Luther Ingram, who is best known for his song “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right.” They wrote the song after a discussion where Ingram said to Rice, “Black folk need to respect themselves.” Rice decided to turn the idea into a song, and quickly cut a demo. He didn’t think it was right for The Staple Singers, but Stax vice-president Al Bell did, stating, “I heard that lyric and I heard that melody and I said, ‘that’s it. This is the song I’ve been waiting on.'”

They slowed down the tempo of Rice’s demo and did a lot of experimenting in the studio. Terry Manning, who engineered the session, said: “It was kind of like all or nothing. We consciously put majors and minors together and rock and blues together. It was a lot of elements trying to fuse together, purposely putting little high tinklely sounds to catch kids’ ears, and just seeing if it would work.”

In the liner notes to the 2011 remaster of the Be Altitude: Respect Yourself album, Stax biographer Rob Bowman points out some of the things to listen for in this song:

Roger Hawkins using the rim of his snare and a wet-to-dry sound on the hi-hat.
A fuzzed electric guitar line that gets louder as the song fades out at the end. This was supposed to have a subliminal effect on the listener.
Mavis Staples blasting into the words “big ole man” at the end of the second verse.
The scat singing on two 4-bar sections, which was written as horn lines. On the demo, Mack Rice did the scatting to show where the horns would be, but The Staples sang it anyway, and the results were so good they decided to leave it in.

A cover version was a #5 hit in the US for Bruce Willis in 1987. He was the first white male solo act to hit the Top 5 with a record on the Motown label, and only the second white male solo act – after R. Dean Taylor’s “Indiana Wants Me” – to be so successful for the Motown Corportation.

The very first Soul Train dance line was to this song. The show went on the air in 1971, but the famous segment where dancers showed off their moves grooving down the line didn’t start until five episodes in, when host/creator Don Cornelius realized the dancers were the big draw.

Respect Yourself

If you disrespect anybody that you run in to
How in the world do you think anybody’s s’posed to respect you
If you don’t give a heck ’bout the man with the bible in his hand, y’all
Just get out the way, and let the gentleman do his thing
You the kind of gentleman that want everything your way, yeah
Take the sheet off your face, boy, it’s a brand new day

Respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself
If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
Respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself

If you’re walking ’round think’n that the world owes you something ’cause you’re here
You goin’ out the world backwards like you did when you first come here yeah
Keep talkin’ bout the president, won’t stop air pollution
Put your hand on your mouth when you cough, that’ll help the solution
Oh, you cuss around women and you don’t even know their names, no
Then you’re dumb enough to think that’ll make you a big ol’ man

Respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself
If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
Respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself

Respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself, respect yourself
Respect yourself, yeah yeah respect yourself, respect yourself yeah, respect yourself
You oughta you oughta respect yourself yeah, respect yourself