I'm a pretty optimistic person, by nature. (Yes, there's more than a healthy dose of cynicism, but I'm a journalist, after all.) When things get gloomy and depressing, I know I can rely on some songs to blow the black clouds away.
This one, from the Staple Singers, always, always does the trick. It talks about genocide, corruption, crime ... and yet, it rises above all that. The part where the strings do exactly that? That's it, my friend.
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In the divide of whether Joss Stone is the real thing, I'm in the confirmed camp. She holds her own with Mavis Staples, in a duet on the Staples Singers' own I'll Take You There ... a gutsy move, unless you know you can throw it down at that level. (Joss Stone, meanwhile, will play Anne of Cleves in the upcoming season of The Tudors ... which would seem to throw out all that babble about the supposedly homely appearance of Henry VIII's fourth wife.)
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One of my favourite songs is The Weight, which is still as engaging as it is cryptic; my favourite version is an adaptation The Band made for The Last Waltz with the Staple Singers. I knew I'll Take You There from the radio, but I wasn't aware of Mavis Staples until I saw The Last Waltz; I remember being impressed when Martin Scorsese pulled back the camera - a good minute into the song - as her part began, and she knocked one out of the park. A clever bit of direction to incorporate a superb vocal.
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