First child to Roebuck "Pops" Staples and his wife Oceola Staples, Cleotha was born in
Drew, Mississippi, in 1934. Two years later, Roebuck moved his family from Mississippi to
Chicago. The family began appearing in
Chicago-area churches in 1948. Their first public singing appearance was at the Mount Zion Church, Chicago, where Roebuck's brother, the Rev. Chester Staples, was pastor. They signed their first professional contract in 1952. During their early career, they recorded in an acoustic gospel-
folk style with various labels:
United Records,
Vee-Jay Records (their "
Uncloudy Day" and "
Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" were best sellers),
Checker Records,
Riverside Records, and then
Epic Records in 1965. "Uncloudy Day" was an early influence on
Bob Dylan, who said of it in 2015, "It was the most mysterious thing I'd ever heard ... I'd think about them even at my school desk ... Mavis looked to be about the same age as me in her picture (on the cover of "Uncloudy Day") ... Her singing just knocked me out ... And Mavis was a great singer—deep and mysterious. And even at the young age, I felt that life itself was a mystery." The move to Epic yielded a run of albums, including the live in-church
Freedom Highway album produced by
Billy Sherrill; the title track of which was a civil rights movement protest song penned by Pops Staples. It was on Epic that the Staple Singers developed a style more accessible to mainstream audiences, with "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" and "
For What It's Worth" (
Stephen Stills) in 1967. In 1968, the Staple Singers signed to
Stax Records and released two albums with
Steve Cropper—
Soul Folk in Action and ''We'll Get Over'', Pervis returning for them. After Cropper left Stax, Al Bell produced their recordings, conducting the rhythm sessions at the famed
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and cutting the overdubs himself with engineer/musician
Terry Manning at Memphis's
Ardent Studios, moving in a more
funk and
soul direction. Their song "Brand New Day", written by
Al Kooper for the film, was used as the theme song (and for the opening title credits) of
The Landlord (1970). The Staple Singers' first Stax hit was "
Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom-Boom)" in early 1971. Their late 1971 recording of "
Respect Yourself", written by
Luther Ingram and
Mack Rice, peaked at number two on the
Billboard R&B chart and number 12 on the
Billboard Hot 100. Both hits sold over one million copies and were each awarded a
gold disc by the
Recording Industry Association of America. The song's theme of self-empowerment had universal appeal, released in the period immediately following the intense
American civil rights movement of the 1960s. In 1972, "
I'll Take You There" topped both
Billboard charts. Cleotha Staples died in Chicago on February 21, 2013, at the age of 78, after suffering from
Alzheimer's disease for over a decade.
Mavis Staples has continued to collaborate on both the projects of other artists and her own solo work. In 2022, she released
Carry Me Home, a collaboration with
Levon Helm, recorded at Helm's Midnight Ramble in 2011. She appeared at
Glastonbury in 2015 and 2019, and her 2016 album ''
Livin' on a High Note'' includes a simple acoustic version of a
Martin Luther King sermon in the track "MLK Song". Yvonne Staples died on April 10, 2018, at the age of 80. ==Documentary==