(From 9/3/2019) This week I’m featuring another “staple” of my favorites.
I saw Mavis Staples at the Saratoga Springs Jazz Festival in June of 2018 and she sounded as good as she did when singing with her family in the ’70’s. Her voice still gives me goosebumps.
The Staple Singers’ first hit was “Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom)” in early 1971 with Stax Records. Their late 1971 recording of “Respect Yourself” peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both hits sold over one million copies and were awarded a gold disc. In 1972, “I’ll Take You There” topped both pop and R&B Billboard charts.
After Stax’s 1975 bankruptcy, they signed to Curtis Mayfield’s label and released “Let’s Do It Again”, produced by Mayfield. The song became their second No. 1 pop hit in the U.S., and the album was also successful. In 1976, they collaborated with The Band for their film The Last Waltz, performing on the song “The Weight”.
In 1999, The Staple Singers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Pops Staples died of complications from a concussion suffered in December 2000. In 2005, the group was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Here they are singing “The Weight” by The Band in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz”. In addition, I threw in a live version of “Respect Yourself” from their 1972 concert at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. Crank them up and enjoy…!!
Reminder… You can click in the lower right of a YouTube video to make it full screen. Also, you can use the Posts menu item to filter news posts to a specific category – e.g. Music Videos – to just show those. Enjoy!
