singer; guitarist
Personal Information
Born Roebuck Staples on December 28, 1914, in Winona, MS; died on December 19, 2000, in Dolton, IL; married Oceola (died 1987); children: Cleotha, Yvonne, Mavis, Cynthia (deceased), and Pervis.
Career
Began playing guitar while working on Dockery plantation, late 1920s; performed with gospel group the Golden Trumpets; moved to Chicago, 1935; performed with gospel group the Trumpet Jubilees; formed Staple Singers with daughters Mavis and Cleotha and son Pervis (replaced by daughter Yvonne, 1971), 1947; began recording gospel for Vee Jay label, 1956; Staple Singers signed with Epic label, released folk-oriented material, 1965; Staple Singers signed with Stax label, 1968; released top hits including "I'll Take You There;" signed with Curtom label, 1975; released solo album debut, Pops Staples, 1987; appeared in stage production The Gospel at Colonus, 1990; released solo albums Peace to the Neighborhood, 1992, Father Father, 1994.
Life's Work
The music of "Pops" Staples embodied a relationship between the sacred and the secular that is distinctive to African-American culture. Moving easily between the two realms, he infused blues and soul with the idealism and commitment of gospel music--after having expanded the language of gospel and surprised hearers in Chicago's black churches by accompanying his family gospel group, the Staple Singers, with blues-style guitar. With a career that began in the cradle of the blues and had its culmination in a series of top hits in the world of popular music, Staples was one of the essential African-American musicians of the twentieth century.
Born Roebuck Staples on December 28, 1914, in Winona, Mississippi, he was named after the cofounder of the Sears, Roebuck department store chain--one of his brothers was named Sears. He was the 13th of 14 children. Growing up in the Mississippi town of Drew, Staples picked cotton as a boy on the famed Dockery plantation, in some historical accounts the birthplace of blues music and without doubt a location associated with some of the tradition's greatest pathbreakers. Staples bought his first guitar for five dollars at the plantation's general store.
Absorbed Blues and Gospel
Influenced directly by fellow Dockery worker Charley Patton, Staples is also thought to have heard the music of Robert Johnson and Son House in person. On recordings he heard the music of other blues guitarists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Big Bill Broonzy. But he was also raised in a church whose members often considered the blues sinful, and he grew up singing gospel music. In the 1940s, he temporarily gave up the blues entirely in order to steer his children into gospel, and it was as a member of a local gospel group, the Golden Trumpets, that Staples made his musical debut.
Staples, his wife, Oceola, and their growing family joined the Great Migration north, settling in Chicago in 1935 or 1936. He worked in the city's brutal stockyards for a time and had various other jobs, including one as a meatpacker at the Armour corporation's production plant. With both parents working and combining their efforts to raise five children there was little time for music, but Staples nevertheless made some appearances with a gospel group called the Trumpet Jubilees.
As the Staples children grew older, Staples began teaching them to harmonize vocally by breaking chords on his guitar down into their individual notes, and with daughters Mavis and Cleo and son Pervis (who was replaced in 1971 by another daughter, Yvonne), he formed the Staple Singers in 1947. For many years the group sang only gospel music, but even in their early days they were musical boundary-crossers. "I still had that blues feel," Staples was quoted as saying in the Chicago Sun-Times. "I couldn't get that out of my system." Some churches resisted the bluesy tinge of the Staples' music, but their spiritual conviction won most of their audiences over.
Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr
In 1956, the Staple Singers inaugurated a long recording career with a series of singles for Chicago's United and Vee Jay record labels, covering such gospel standards as "Uncloudy Day" in a dark, profound blues style. Those records sold unusually well for gospel releases, but the Staple Singers took their music to another level after Staples began hearing the powerful anti-segregation preaching of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the late 1950s. "If he can preach it, we can sing it," Staples told his family, according to the Washington Post. Staples wrote one of his best-known gospel numbers, "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)," in response to the violent clashes over school desegregation that occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, and King, in turn, often requested that song when he and the Staple Singers shared a podium.
The Staple Singers became more and more identified with folk music and its associated protest movements in the 1960s, beginning to record secular material in 1962 but never leaving behind the high-mindedness of gospel. Recording for the Epic label, they released such folk-rock numbers as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," and took a new version of "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" to the lower levels of the pop charts. The success of those recordings led the Staple Signers to a contract with Stax records in 1968--just as the label was hitting its stride as the primary purveyor of southern soul.
With that move, Staples was able to bring all the strands of his long musical experience together--blues and gospel roots, a progressive orientation derived from folk music and the protest culture of the 1960s, and now a rhythmically powerful and innovative sound honed by the staff producers and instrumentalists at Stax who did much to create soul music itself. The Staple Singers' 1971 single "Respect Yourself" went to No. 2 on the pop charts, and "I'll Take You There," its irresistible main bass-guitar-and-horns riff later to become a favorite source of hip-hop samples, went to No. 1 the following year. The group scored several other pop and numerous soul hits, and Pops Staples also released several singles as a solo act.
Worked with Curtis Mayfield
Entering his seventh decade, Staples continued to seek out new musical challenges and stylistic combinations. The Staple Singers signed with Chicago vocalist and songwriter Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label in 1975 and scored one more No. 1 hit, "Let's Do It Again." In the 1980s, they even tried, with some success, to adapt their sound to the dance-oriented music of that decade. The group's popularity declined somewhat, but Staples kept busy with several film appearances, a role in the Greek tragedy/gospel stage musical A Gospel at Colonus, and, in 1987, his solo album debut, Pops Staples.
By the 1990s, Staples was considered a legend of American music; he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet he continued to perform and record fresh material rather than resting on his laurels. Two more solo albums, 1992's Peace to the Neighborhood and 1994's Father Father, saw Staples at once returning to his musical roots and joining forces with younger blues artists such as Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt. Father Father won a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Musically active until the very end of his life, Staples died peacefully at his home in Dolton, Illinois, near Chicago, on December 19, 2000.
Awards
Selected Awards: Pioneer Award, Rhythm & Blues Foundation, 1992; Grammy award nomination, for Peace to the Neighborhood, 1992; Grammy award, Best Contemporary Blues Album, for Father Father, 1994; Heritage Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1998.
Works
Selected discography
- with the Staple Singers
- Uncloudy Day, Vee Jay, 1961.
- Hammers and Nails, Riverside, 1962.
- Amen, Epic, 1965.
- Why?, Epic, 1966.
- Soul Folk in Action, Stax, 1968.
- The Staple Swingers, Stax, 1970.
- Bealtitude: Respect Yourself, Stax, 1972.
- Be What You Are, Stax, 1973.
- Let's Do It Again, Curtom, 1975.
- This Time Around, Stax, 1981.
- Freedom Highway, Columbia, 1991.
- as solo act
- Pops Staples, A&M, 1987.
- Peace to the Neighborhood, Pointblank, 1992.
- Father Father, Pointblank, 1994.
Further Reading
Books
- Contemporary Musicians, volume 11, Gale Research, 1994.
- Heilbut, Anthony, The Gospel Sound, Limelight, 1992.
- Chicago Sun-Times, December 20, 2000, p. 61.
- The Guardian (London, England), December 29, 2000, p. 17.
- Jet, July 27, 1998, p. 32; January 8, 2001, p. 52.
- Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2000, p. B6.
- New York Times, December 22, 2000, p. B14.
- The Times (London, England), December 21, 2000, Features section.
- Washington Post, December 20, 2000, p. B7.
- All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com.
— James M. Manheim
