Earlier this year, Craft Recordings released The Staple Singers’ Come Go with Me: The Stax Collection in vinyl and digital editions. The set compiled all of The Staple Singers’ 1968-1974 albums for the Stax label plus a volume of rarities, non-LP single sides, and live recordings. On November 13, that box will come to CD as remastered from the original analog tapes by Jeff Powell at Take Out Vinyl.

Come Go with Me: The Stax Collection features the following original studio albums:

• Soul Folk in Action(1968)
• We’ll Get Over (1970)
• The Staple Swingers (1971)
• Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (1972)
• Be What You Are (1973)
• City in the Sky (1974)

plus a disc of Singles, Live and More.

Stax signed The Staple Singers – Roebuck “Pops” Staples, his daughters Mavis and Cleotha, and son Pervis (later to be replaced in the line-up by his sister Yvonne) – during a tumultuous time when the gospel greats were regularly appearing with folk and countercultural rock artists including Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Though the Staples had moved into the realm of secular music, there was still a deep spirituality and social conscience to their music which had crystallized and taken on new resonance in the civil rights era.

The group’s Stax debut Soul Folk in Action featured the striking “protest songs” with which the Staples had been associated as well as powerful interpretations of rock and soul hits such as The Band’s “The Weight” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”  With titles like “We’ve Got to Get Ourselves Together,” “Got to Be Some Changes Made,” “The Ghetto,” and “Long Walk to D.C.,” the Staples made their voices heard loud and clear in the name of justice and equality. Producer and Stax veteran Steve Cropper returned for 1970’s We’ll Get Over, which followed a similar template of relevant originals (“When Will We Be Paid,” “Tend to Your Own Business”) as well as poignant and eclectic covers (Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People,” Spanky and Our Gang’s “Give a Damn,” Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “The End of Our Road,” Joe South’s “Games People Play,” The Guess Who’s “A Wednesday in Your Garden”).

For all their artistic merits, however, both albums failed to trouble the charts. Stax co-president Al Bell, who had originally signed the Staples, took an even more personal interest in their success. He would produce their third Stax LP. Despite the punning title of The Staple Swingers, the album was no joke. They were backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, upping the funk quotient as they reinvented a variety of pop and soul tunes from The Bee Gees (“Give a Hand – Take a Hand”), Smokey Robinson (“You’ve Got to Earn It”), and Jeff Barry and Bobby Bloom (“Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom).” Bell’s strategy was a success, and the album reached No. 9 on the Billboard R&B survey. It was their first charting LP.

Naturally, the Staples and Bell returned to Muscle Shoals for 1972’s Be Altitude: Respect Yourself. It became their breakthrough to mainstream stardom, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and spinning off a No. 1 pop hit on the Hot 100 with “I’ll Take You There.” Almost as successful was “Respect Yourself,” another quintessential Staples Singers recording with a potent message that needed to be heard. While their final two Stax albums – 1973’s Be What You Are and the following year’s City in the Sky – didn’t meet with pop success, the loyal R&B audience didn’t abandon the group. Both LPs reached the top 15 on the R&B chart. City in the Sky even nodded more explicitly to the Staples’ gospel roots than their previous Stax LPs.

The final disc in the box set comprises five tracks from the Staple Singers’ towering set at the 1972 Wattstax benefit concert plus non-LP single sides (including “Brand New Day,” Al Kooper’s theme to the film The Landlord), and rarities released after their Stax tenure had ended. The Staple Singers followed their time at Stax with recordings for the Curtom and Warner Bros. labels, all of which have recently been reissued by Omnivore Recordings.

The slipcased collection includes a booklet with rare photos and liner notes from historian Levon Williams (formerly of the Stax Museum and the National Museum of African American Music) and folklorist, ethnomusicologist and author Dr. Langston Wilkins.  Look for Come Go with Me: The Stax Collection on November 13 from Stax and Craft Recordings at the links below!

Come Go With Me: The Stax Collection (Stax/Craft Recordings, 2020)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

Disc 1: Soul Folk in Action (Stax STS-2004, 1968)

1. We’ve Got to Get Ourselves Together
2. (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay
3. Top of the Mountain
4. Slow Train
5. The Weight
6. Long Walk to D.C.
7. Got to Be Some Changes Made
8. The Ghetto
9. People, My People
10. I See It
11. This Year

Disc 2: We’ll Get Over (Stax STS-2016, 1969)

1. We’ll Get Over
2. Give a Damn
3. Everyday People
4. The End of Our Road
5. Tend to Your Own Business
6. Solon Bushi (Japanese Folk Song)
7. The Challenge
8. God Bless the Children
9. Games People Play
10. A Wednesday in Your Garden
11. The Gardener
12. When Will We Be Paid

Disc 3: The Staple Swingers (Stax STS-2034, 1971)

1. This Is a Perfect World
2. What’s Your Thing
3. You’ve Got to Earn It
4. You’re Gonna Make Me Cry
5. Little Boy
6. How Do You Move a Mountain
7. Almost
8. I’m a Lover
9. Love Is Plentiful
10. Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom)
11. I Like the Things About You
12. Give a Hand – Take a Hand

Disc 4: Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (Stax STS-3002, 1972)

1. This World
2. Respect Yourself
3. Name the Missing Word
4. I’ll Take You There
5. This Old Town (People in This Town)
6. We the People
7. Are You Sure
8. Who Do You Think You Are? (Jesus Christ the Super Star)
9. I’m Just Another Soldier
10. Who

Disc 5: Be What You Are (Stax STS-3015, 1973)

1. Be What You Are
2. If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)
3. Medley: Love Comes in All Colors/Tellin’ Lies
4. Touch a Hand, Make a Friend
5. Drown Yourself
6. I Ain’t Raisin’ No Sand
7. Grandma’s Hands
8. Bridges Instead of Walls
9. I’m on Your Side
10. That’s What Friends Are For
11. Heaven

Disc 6: City in the Sky (Stax STS-5515, 1974)

1. Back Road Into Town
2. City in the Sky
3. Washington We’re Watching You
4. Something Ain’t Right
5. Today Was Tomorrow Yesterday
6. My Main Man
7. There Is a God
8. Blood Pressure
9. If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another
10. Who Made the Man
11. Getting Too Big for Your Britches

Disc 7: Singles, Live & More

1. Stay With Us
2. Brand New Day (Theme from The Landlord)
3. Walking in Water Over Our Head
4. Oh La De Da
5. I Got to Be Myself
6. Trippin’ on Your Love
7. Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom) (Live at Wattstax, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – 8/20/1972)
8. Are You Sure (Live at Wattstax, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – 8/20/1972)
9. I Like the Things About You (Live at Wattstax, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – 8/20/1972)
10. Respect Yourself (Live at Wattstax, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – 8/20/1972)
11. I’ll Take You There (Live at Wattstax, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – 8/20/1972)

Track 1 from “Long Walk to D.C.” single – Stax STA-0007, 1968
Track 2 from The Landlord: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – United Artists UAS-5209, 1971/Stax single STA-0074, 1970
Track 3 from expanded edition of Be Altitude: Respect Yourself – Stax STX-32876, 2011
Track 4 from Stax single STA-0156, 1973
Tracks 5-6 from This Time Around – Stax MPS-8511, 1981
Tracks 7-8 from Wattstax: Music from the Festival & Film – Stax STX3-30315, 2007
Tracks 9-11 from Wattstax: The Living Word – Stax STS-2-3010, 1972