Album: The Staple Swingers
Year: 1970
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While The Staple Singers didn’t cross over into the pop market until 1970, for the previous decade or so they’d been perfecting their incredibly simple formula: Roebuck “Pops” Staples’ slinky lead guitar and understated lead vocals plus Mavis Staples rough-and-ready lead vocals co-existed on top of some combination of Cleotha, Purvis & Yvonne Staples singing backing vocals.
With Pops doing most of the arranging, they explored a whole plethora of styles in the 1960s: gospel, of course, but also soul, blues, country, folk, and rock — often leaning to the political. And so they covered old classics like “John Henry,” beat Led Zeppelin to “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” and even covered songs like “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and “For What It’s Worth.”