“I'll Take You There”

Stax Records executive Al Bell wrote and produced it, and the Staple Singers recorded it at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama with its famous house band: Roger Hawkins on drums, David Hood on bass, Barry Beckett on keys and Jimmy Johnson on guitar. The easy, rolling groove at the start was borrowed from a Jamaican record, “The Liquidator,” and Mavis Staples calls out the players by name. Released in 1972, it spent four weeks at No. 1 on the R&B chart and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 that June. Rolling Stone’s David Fricke called it the very model of the Muscle Shoals sound, and it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.