I Thank You - LP / Single Version

This exuberant song was written and produced by the Stax Records mainstays Isaac Hayes and David Porter, who were Sam & Dave's main songwriters. The song finds the duo so lovestruck they want to shout it to the heavens - throughout the song they thank the special lady for giving them that feeling and making them understand what their friends mean when they say they've been "turned out" by love. The gospel feel is established off the top when Sam Moore delivers a spoken introduction with the passion of a preacher: "I want everybody to get up off your seat and get your arms together and your hands together and give me some of that old soul clapping."

This was recorded at Stax Recording Studios in Memphis with the Stax house band: Booker T. & the M.G's. Note the drum pattern: Al Jackson accents every third hit of his snare. This was David Porter's idea, although it wasn't easy for him to explain what he was looking for. Porter asked Jackson to play "the sound of horses," and he delivered the beat. Steve Cropper added a dirty guitar sound, and Isaac Hayes played the clavinet (the instrument Stevie Wonder used on "Superstition"). Background vocals were provided by another Stax group, Ollie & the Nightingales.

The song was released on January 8, 1968 - the same day Stax released the Otis Redding song "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" (Redding had died about a month earlier). Stax would soon go through various business problems and their sound fell out of favor. "I Thank You" was the last big hit for Sam & Dave - none of their subsequent releases made the US Top 40.