Staple Singers - I’ll Take You There

LP version (4:44)

After the opening note, the little guitar notes are in the right channel.

I don't have the vinyl LP, but the LP version on Stax's Staple Singers Best Of runs 4:44, with a comically long tail to the fade. The fade starts at 4:05. 4:21 would make a nice point to fade to silence, but it doesn't. It runs on for another 23 seconds at a level of about -40 dB. It sounds pretty nice on this disc.

The other 4-minute-plus versions on CD are the LP version with truncated fades.

45 edit (3:18)

The 45 edit removes the 72 beats, starting on the upbeat at the word "take", from 2:59.6 to 3:41.4 of the LP version, using the timing from the Best Of CD. It then fades from about 2:53, from the last "mercy", to 3:18. It's an easy edit.

The vinyl 45 is also in mono, and is likely a fold-down of the stereo version.

The true 45 appears on only one CD, Reader's Digest's 20 Years Of No. 1 Hits 1956-1975, where it appears in electronically rechanneled stereo, and has a notation of "poor sound quality" in the database. I don't have this disc.

Neither the 45 nor LP version (3:14)

CD compilers probably wanted a true stereo edit that matched the 45, which didn't exist because the 45 was in mono. (Or, the source tape for the 45 was in really bad shape.) Either way, someone had to replicate the edit from the LP version.

I believe that the compilers at Time-Life did a homemade edit of the song in 1989, for Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972. Unfortunately, they got the edit in the wrong place by a beat or two, so that the homemade edit is missing a "you oughta" lyric that appears at 3:00 in the true 45. So close... (Although we can say the same for Time-Life's attempt to replicate the ELO 45 edits.)

Virtually every CD that has the 3-minute-plus version of the song uses this slightly incorrect edit. No one noticed from 1989 until at least 2003; the 2003 version of the Top 40 Music On Compact Disc book still lists these as "45 version".

All are in stereo, and all have the opening little guitar notes in the right channel.

The good news is that Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972 (1989) sounds very good, with great dynamic range, nice EQ, good source tapes, and no noise reduction. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Razor & Tie's 2-CD Super '70s (1995)
• JCI's Only Soul 1970-1974 (1996)
• Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul Vol. 7 1972 (1996)

Rhino's Billboard Top R&B Hits 1972 (1990) also used the same analog transfer as Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972, but with an inverted absolute polarity (an insignificant difference, and doesn't affect sound quality at all). Here, it sounds about the same as on the Time-Life disc. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Rhino's Didn't It Blow Your Mind Vol. 8 (1991)
• Rhino's In Yo' Face Vol. 1 (1993)
• Rhino's Millennium Funk Party (1998)

All of the above sound just fine.

If you're going to hunt down the incorrect edit, you may as well go to the source: Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 3 1972 (1989)