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THE STAPLE SINGERS – GOSPEL’S ROYAL FAMILY

By Paul Panchezak
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The gospel music community has always tended to be an insular world. The gospel audience has traditionally shunned artists who attempt to break out into other more lucrative genres seeing this as an abandonment of purely spiritual pursuits for secular success. Yet the Staple Singers, for decades one of the most respected names in gospel music, managed to somehow maintain their spiritual credentials despite branching out and encompassing country, blues, soul, folk and pop elements. Daughter Mavis Staples has over the course of her career released solo records produced by the likes of Steve Cropper of Stax Records fame, Prince, Ry Cooder and, most recently, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Ironically one of the most important early influences on the group, one that shaped their unique sound, was that of the “devil’s music” – blues.

“Pops” Roebuck Staples, the patriarch of the group, was born in 1915 in the tiny rural Delta town of Winona, Mississippi, one hundred miles south of Memphis. At the age of eight he went to work on the vast Dockery plantation. There he heard first hand some of the greatest pioneers in blues including Willie Lee Brown, Howlin’ Wolf and, most importantly, Charlie Patton. Pops absorbed elements of Patton’s guitar technique and it was that sound, electrified with a sheen of reverb and tremolo that is one of the most identifying characteristics of the Staples Singers sound. By the age of eighteen Roebuck was entertaining at local juke joints in rural Mississippi. At about this time he married a childhood sweetheart, Oceola Ware and in 1935 she gave birth to their first daughter, Cleotha. Soon thereafter, discouraged by the limitations of country life and with the addition of a son, Pervis, to the family, Roebuck headed north to Chicago, the Promised Land for poverty stricken southern blacks.

In Chicago Pops worked at a variety of jobs trying to make ends meet – stockyard, construction site and steel mills among others. The Staples family also grew with the addition of three more daughters, Yvonne, Mavis and Cynthia Marie. While working days Roebuck also began to sing in the evenings with a gospel quartet called the Trumpet Jubilees. Over time, however, he found that the group’s dedication and commitment was below his own expectations and so he decided to form a family group consisting of himself, Pervis, Cleotha and Mavis. Under his tutelage the Staples began singing in gospel caravans. Their sound was unusual and unique, with accompaniment coming from Pops’ bluesy guitar rather than the more traditional and commonplace piano or organ. As a result, at times they were ridiculed as being too “country” for gospel fans.

1941 proved to be a tough year for Roebuck. He found himself laid off work and forced to turn to Social Security for survival. Without other options he decided to pursue a musical career full time. The family’s gospel group became their main source of income. To promote their live appearances and add to their gate receipts they recorded a self financed single in 1953 and over the next few years released tracks on the United label that attracted little attention.

As luck would have it their fortunes took a turn for the better in 1955 when they signed with the Chicago based Vee Jay label. At Vee Jay the true Staples sound, anchored by their plaintive vocal style and with Pops haunting guitar sound front and center, was embraced rather than resisted. In 1956 they scored their first gospel hit with “Uncloudy Day”. The recording introduced the gospel music audience to the unique voice of seventeen-year-old Mavis Staples. Thanks to their recording success at Vee Jay the Staples established themselves as mainstays on the gospel touring circuit but by the early sixties Pops was becoming restless and was looking for an opportunity to break new ground.

This led to the decision to leave Vee Jay and sign with the Riverside label. At Riverside they began to break out of the narrow confines of traditional black gospel music by throwing their lot in with the growing folk music boom. This change in focus brought them to the attention of the young, white, educated audience that was filling coffee houses, concert halls and folk and jazz festivals. It was a generation that rediscovered long forgotten blues, jazz and folk artists and gave them a new lease on life. On that circuit the Staple Singers crossed paths with a young fan of their records who was making his own reputation on the folk scene – singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. At one point the young Dylan actually proposed marriage to Mavis but was turned down. Nevertheless, the group took to Dylan’s burgeoning song catalogue, recording a number of his compositions including “Masters of War”, “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and one of the earliest covers of “Blowin’ In the Wind”. Releases like these brought the Staple Singers into the world of protest and message songs. More importantly this led to a growing association with the civil rights movement, in particular the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

When their stint with Riverside came to an end the Staple Singers signed with Epic Records. At Epic the group’s identity as a popular musical voice of the civil rights movement expanded to include an association with the “new left” and those voicing protest against the American involvement in Vietnam. At Epic they recorded covers of the Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” and Dylan’s previously unrecorded “John Brown”. It was also at Epic that Pops Staples wrote and recorded what are probably his most important compositions – “Freedom Highway”, written in response to the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)”, a reflection on the ongoing troubles surrounding school integration in the south. The latter was a particular favourite of Dr. King.

During the Staple Singers term on Epic Records, Al Bell, the vice-president at Stax Records expressed his dream of someday signing the group to his popular Memphis based soul label. In the late 1960’s the stars aligned. The Staples contract at Epic ended at a time when Stax was desperate to sign and record new acts on account of the fact that Atlantic Records had sold away all of Stax previous recordings to Warner Brothers. The company was now left with the daunting task of building a new catalogue having lost their previous one. Al Bell was thrilled and proud to sign the Staple Singers to the new revamped Stax Records. The idea was to introduce Pops and his daughters to the world of popular soul music. Their first recordings for their new label were put together at the famous studios on McLemore Ave in Memphis utilizing the well known Stax session players. Response to these discs however was lukewarm. Al Bell then decided to take the Staples to the growing recording center of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the source of enormous recent success for a number of artists including Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin. Almost immediately things clicked and the Staple Singers had two back to back records that proved to be the most successful in their long career. “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There“ conquered not only the soul and R&B charts but broke through into the mainstream pop market as well. “I’ll Take You There” reached number one on both the R&B and pop charts, an incredible feat for gospel artists. This achievement proved to be one of the pinnacles of the Staple Singers career. By the late eighties they had stopped recording as a group although they continued to be a popular live act.

For the two main voices of the group, Pops and Mavis, achievements and accolades continued to mount. Already in his eighties Pops received his first Grammy award in the category of “Contemporary Blues Recording” in 1995 for “Father Father” the second of two critically acclaimed solo albums. He passed away in 2001 just a few days short of his 86th birthday. Mavis’s first Grammy was awarded to her in 2011 for “You Are Not Alone” her first collaboration with producer Jeff Tweedy. The category was “Best Americana Album”, a genre of music that the Staple family helped to bring into existence. Americana, soul, blues, pop, country and always with a gospel foundation the music of the Staple Singers is best defined by a phrase coined by Duke Ellington – “beyond category”.

On CFMU you can hear the music of the Staples on programs like “Come Sunday” (Fridays at 1:00 PM) and the “Breakfast of Champions” (Thursdays 10 until noon).