Roebuck "Pops" Staples

The patriarch of one of music's most successful families, Roebuck "Pops" Staples worked with everyone from Robert Johnson to Curtis Mayfield. Roebuck Staples was born December 28, 1914, in Winona, Mississippi; a close friend of Charley Patton, he played not only with Johnson but also with such legends as Son House and Robert Jr. Lockwood, becoming a top-notch blues guitarist in the process. Increasingly drawn to the church, he joined the gospel group the Golden Trumpets in 1937, and upon relocating to Chicago in 1941, he signed on with the Windy City's trumpet jubilees. By the...