Page 4 - BiTS_06_JUNE_2021

Pervis Staples—November 1935 - May 2021

Pervis Staples, who co-founded the gospel group the Staple Singers with
his father, has died aged 85. He died on 6 May, a family representative
confirmed. No cause of death was given.

Pervis was born in November 1935 in Drew, Mississippi. The
family soon moved to Chicago, where he became friends with
the likes of Sam Cooke, and his youth was “filled with

wonderful experiences”, Mavis told Rolling Stone. “Pervis and the
guys would stand under the lamp-posts in the summertime singing
doo-wop songs.”

Roebuck “Pops” Staples (d
2000), Pervis’ father, formed
the Staple Singers with his

children Cleotha (d 2018),
Pervis and Mavis in the late
1940s. They sang in churches
around Chicago and soon
recorded for a variety of record
labels, leading them to Epic in
1965 and Stax three years later.

Pervis became friends with Bob
Dylan, who called their 1959
song ‘Uncloudy Day’—believed to
be the first million-selling gospel single—“the most mysterious thing I’d ever heard”. This prompted
him and Mavis to record a well regarded version of Dylan’s song, ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’.
Another sister, Yvonne Staples who covered for Purvis when he joined the army, died on April 10,

2018 at the age of 80.

The group gained fame in the 1960s by singing music that urged change on a variety of social and
religious issues. The Staple Singers gained a huge audience with their first No. 1 hit, ‘I’ll Take You
There” in 1972 and followed with top 40 hits ‘Respect Yourself’, ‘Heavy Makes You Happy’, and ‘If
You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)’.

Pervis Staples eventually left the Staple Singers after their first record for Stax Records, 1968's Soul
Folk in Action. He went on to manage the Hutchinson Sunbeams, who later became the Emotions,
and opened his own Chicago nightclub called Perv's.

He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and received a lifetime achievement
Grammy award in 2005, both as as part of the Staple Singers. In the family statement, Mavis
Staples said "He was one of the good guys and will live on as a true Chicago statement."

Staples was preceded in death by his parents, Roebuck and Oceola; and three sisters, Cynthia,
Cleotha, and Yvonne. He is survived by his six children, seven grandchildren and seven great-
grandchildren. Funeral services were held in Chicago.