Roebuck “Pops” Staples is born in Winona, Mississippi.
Pops Staples joins the Golden Trumpets, a gospel quartet.
The Staple Singers—a quartet comprising patriarch Pops and children Cleotha, Pervis and Mavis Staples—begin performing at churches in the Chicago area, where they’ve been living since 1936.
For their first recording, the Staples cut a 78 rpm single ("These They Are” b/w “Faith and Grace") and pressed it up on their own Royal label.
The Staple Singers cut a gospel number called “Sit Down Servant” (a.k.a. “Won’t You Sit Down") for the Chicago-based United Label.
“Uncloudy Day” becomes a gospel hit on the Vee-Jay label.
Yvonne Staples joins the group as brother Pervis’s replacement during his two-year hitch in the U.S. Army.
The Staples sign to the Riverside label, where they record four albums in a gospel-folk direction. With the inclusion of “Blown’ in the Wind” on their 1963 album ‘This Land’, they become the first African-American group to record a Bob Dylan song.
As the civil-rights and antiwar movements gather momentum, the Staple Singers release, ‘Amen!’, the first of six message-oriented albums for Epic Records (a Columbia subsidiary).
The Staple Singers hit #95 in the US with “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)”.
The Staple Singers’ cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” reaches #66 on Billboard’s pop singles chart.
The Staple Singers move to the Memphis-based Stax Records, where they will remain for through 1974. Injecting soul and R&B into their “message music,” the Staples enjoy their greatest period of commercial success at Stax.
The Staple Singers hit #27 with “Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na- Boom Boom)”.
“Respect Yourself” reaches #2 on the R&B charts and #12 pop.
“I’ll Take You There” tops both the pop and R&B charts, remaining ensconced at #1 on the latter for four weeks.
“If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” tops the R&B chart for three weeks and reaches #9 on the pop chart.
The Staple Singers hit #1 for the second time with “Let’s Do It Again,” released on Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label.
The Band performs their farewell concert at San Francisco’s Winterland. The show is filmed by Martin Scorcese and later released as ‘The Last Waltz’. During the show, Pops and Mavis Staples join in on “The Weight.”
The Staple Singers’ version of the Talking Heads’ “Slippery People” reaches #22 on the R&B chart (#109 pop).
BeBe & CeCe Winans hit #90 with “Ill Take You There” featuring Mavis Staples.
Mavis Staples releases ‘The Voice’, the second of two solo albums for Prince’s Paisley Park label. A tour de force of soulful funk, it was judged one of the ten best albums of the year by ‘People’ magazine.
Pops Staples receives a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album for ‘Father Father’, released the previous year.
The Staple Singers are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the fourteenth annual induction dinner.
Roebuck “Pops” Staples dies in his sleep.
