6 Degrees of Soul: Willie “Too Tall” Hall of Day 11’s The Bar Kays is known for backing several Stax artists. He was on the sticks for Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft”. One of the many Stax artists Hall backed was Day 13’s The Staple Singers.
Mavis, Cleotha, Yvonne & “Pops” make up the Staple Singers. The family unit began as an acoustic gospel group and rarely strayed far from their core. In 1968, they signed to Stax Records and ventured into mainstream with hits like “Heavy Makes You Happy” and “Respect Yourself”. After the collapse of Stax, the group decided to do it again and moved to Curtom Records, founded by Curtis Mayfield. Since then Mavis has gone on to have a brilliant solo gospel career.
…teaching us all how to “Respect Yourself” at WattStax…
…written and produced by Al Bell, “I’ll Take You There” was the groups first number one hit in 1972…
…growing up I thought this was the “remix” to “I’ll Take You There” …it wasn’t… lol… a new song…. with the same feel… “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)”…
…with Curtis Mayfield behind the boards, the Staples scored another #1 hit with “Let’s Do It Again”… for the soundtrack to the Bill Cosby / Sidney Poitier comedy hit of the same title…
…just wanted to leave you all with this picture of young Mavis Staples… 😀
– dre’ of onustees.com
