Dave's Song of the Day
I’ll Take You There
Friday song of the day: Today’s song is about Heaven, although the word is never mentioned in the lyrics.
The Staple Singers were a gospel and soul group created by Roebuck “Pops” Staples and featuring his children, generally daughters Cleotha, Mavis and Yvonne, although the lineup sometimes included his son Pervis. They recorded several albums in the late 1950s on through the 1960s, but their big commercial breakthrough came in 1971, when they had two Top 40 singles, including the #12
Respect Yourself. Then in 1972 they released an album to capitalize on
Respect Yourself. The album,
Be Attitude: Respect Yourself, included the recent hit single as well as new songs. One of these was
I’ll Take You There.
The song was written by Stax Records co-owner and Vice President Al Bell (real name Alvertis Isbell) following the shooting death of his brother and imagined a more perfect existence in Heaven. As Bell explained it, he got the inspiration at the funeral. “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.”
Bell offered the song to The Staple Singers, and it was recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section instead of the usual Stax Records staff musicians. According to Al Bell, at first lead singer Mavis Staples didn’t care for the song, but after Bell sang it for her a few times she warmed up to it. “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.”
I’ll Take You There was released as a single in February 1972. The album version was 4:43 in length, while the single was edited down to 3:16. The single rose to #1 on the R&B charts by May, and the following month placed at #1 on the overall
Billboard Hot 100 chart. It has since become recognized as a classic, placing on
Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
The English band General Public recorded a cover version of the song in 1994 for the movie
Threesome. Their version of
I’ll Take You There was also a hit, reaching #22 on the Hot 100.
Single version
View: https://youtu.be/Qsl4A9hZEto
Album version
View: https://youtu.be/E7T1rN6nYeE
General Public, 1994
View: https://youtu.be/m0N_Q0JqH80
Tomorrow: Maybe I think too much but something’s wrong