The Staple Singers were a family band from Chicago who turned gospel into protest music without changing the subject. Pops Staples and his daughters -- Mavis, Cleotha, and Yvonne -- started singing in church, marched with Dr. King, and by the early 1970s were putting messages of Black pride and self-respect onto the pop charts.

Respect Yourself wasn't a suggestion. It was a commandment backed by the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. I'll Take You There hit #1 in 1972 -- a promise of deliverance set to a groove so irresistible it barely needed words. Pops Staples' guitar -- that tremolo-heavy, reverb-soaked sound -- was the secret ingredient. Mavis's voice was the force of nature.

They were the soundtrack of the civil rights movement and the sound of Black America in the years that followed. Freedom Highway, their album-length response to the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, is protest music that feels like church. The Staples never separated the spiritual from the political. They knew they were the same thing.

The Staple Singers -- Pops and his daughters. Marched with Dr. King. I'll Take You There. Respect Yourself is a sermon you can dance to.