The Staples family was among the Dockery farmers. Roebuck Staples was the youngest of fourteen children. He was raised singing praise songs, but the blues was in the air—in juke joints and general stores, on street corners and in barrelhouses. Dockery Farms and the surrounding towns produced an astonishing crop of blues players, including Robert Johnson, Son House, McKinley Morganfield , and Chester Arthur Burnett . Roebuck listened to them all.
Staples acknowledges that she was a resistant pupil at first. “I didn’t like to rehearse,” she told me. “Pops said, ‘Mavis, your voice is a gift that God gave you. If you don’t use it, he’ll take it back.’ I was the first one in rehearsal after that.” Pops was a stickler, too. Forget about the kids singing the blues: in those days, he wouldn’t even let them play cards. But he was excited about the offers they were getting after that one-song première. He taught the kids to sing “Tell Heaven,” “Too Close,” and what became, in 1956, their first recorded hit, “Uncloudy Day.” From the start, the Staple Singers were a distinctively old-fashioned group in the quartet tradition.
When Staples finished high school, in 1957, Pops quit his job and declared it possible for the Staple Singers to focus completely on their music. Staples resisted, telling him that she wanted to study to be a nurse. “He said, ‘Mavis, baby, don’t you know you’re already a nurse?’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Don’t you know that when you be singing, and those people come around crying and want to touch your hand, you’re making them feel better?’ ” Staples was not the rebellious sort.
Pops, furious, told Mavis to pull the car up to the service-station office and wait. He followed the attendant into the office, where they quickly got into a shouting match.
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Fine, fine piece. Thank you.m
boxofone Haven't read it, but may be of interest to you. x
from that entire (excellent) article you go with the clickbait about Aretha?
Insecure? What do you expect? She had a child at 12 and that trauma probably stayed with her til death. No psychological help back in the day for black people. You dealt with it the best you could.
MissMargoPrice Thanx, Margo. I guess it’s O.G. night
You're both incredible....much love
I bet that wasn’t easy for Ms. Staples to say but the truth is the truth. I’ve never figured out how Aretha Franklin achieved this “sainthood” status. An amazing soul vocalist but also a slumlord to many underprivileged Detroit residents; her death shouldn’t erase that fact.
Wow! Just wow!
Mavis rules
MissMargoPrice Mavis, superhero
This was a great profile but her personality difference with Aretha Franklin was just a very small part of it, almost an aside. Why not use her romance with Bob Dylan as your social media hook?
thedeathsiren this quote from jeff tweedy lol
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