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The Staple Singers - Hampton Jazz Festival, Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA, 6-29-1973
The Staple Singers were a family music group that existed for a long time, from the early 1950s until the 1990s. They were decently popular all through the 1950s and 1960s (Bob Dylan was a big fan of their early work), but their acoustic mix of gospel and folk limited their appeal. Then, in the early 1970s, they moved in more of a mainstream soul direction, and were rewarded with four big classic hits: "Respect Yourself," "I'll Take You There," "If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)" and "Let's Do It Again." Here's a soundboard bootleg concert from their peak early 1970s period.
Although the Staple Singers toured a lot, there are surprisingly few live recordings from this time, either officially released or bootleg. There are three official live albums from them. One is very early, 1964, and the other two are quite late, 1980s or after. Quality bootlegs are few and far between. This is the only worthy one I've found from the 1970s that has at least some of their big hits. "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There" are here, but the other two hits mentioned above hadn't been released yet.
The Staple Singers always had a gospel element to them. Personally, I'm not religious and don't like preachy music. But while there's a gospel number here, I'm perfectly okay with it.
As an aside, weird fact: the band members were all from the Staples family, with the key members being Pop Staples as lead guitarist and Mavis Staples as the usual lead vocalist. Yet for some reason they called themselves the "Staple Singers" instead of the "Staples Singers."
Here's their Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Staple_Singers
This album is 40 minutes long.
01 Be What You Are (Staple Singers)
02 talk (Staple Singers)
03 I Like the Things about Me (Staple Singers)
04 Respect Yourself (Staple Singers)
05 Don't Break My Heart (Staple Singers)
06 I'll Take You There (Staple Singers)
07 talk (Staple Singers)
08 And the Lord Will Hear (Staple Singers)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/z2dNw5BG
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/VeBDNnozv75XmBU/file
The cover image comes from an appearance on the "In Concert" ABC TV Show on November 14, 1973.
