Roebuck "Pops" Staples
Roebuck “Pops” Staples
(December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000)
American gospel and R&B musician. A “pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 1970s,”he was an amazing songwriter, guitarist and singer. To me his voice resonates with a gentle kind of soul. He was the patriarch and member of singing group The Staple Singers, which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis, Yvonne, and Cleotha. With encouragement from Martin Luther King Jr. the staple singers wrote some of the most beautiful civil rights anthems of the 1960s. His daughter Mavis summed up her father’s words of encouragement as an Artist to her quite well saying,”simply sing and do it with all your heart and you’ll be all right”