The Staple Singers: I’ll Take You There
Yvonne Staples of soul trio The Staple Singers has died at 80 years old. Yvonne replaced her brother in the band after he was drafted into the army, making the group three sisters with their father on guitar. The song “I’ll Take You There” was a Billboard top 100 in 1972 (when it was released) and spent some 15 weeks on the chart. Later it was covered and sampled several times; perhaps most notably in Salt-n-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex.” The upbeat track (oftentimes viewed as a kind of utopian anthem in which the civil rights movement was successful) is full of call-and-response, cheerful horns and approachable chords.
