Pops Staples - Preaching the Tremolo Gospel - Ask Zac 113

well hello friends i hope you're doing
0:53
well today welcome to another Ask Zac
0:55
and today we are going to pay tribute to
0:57
pop's staples
0:59
i love his playing i love his singing i
1:02
love his family band the staple singers
1:06
i love mavis and
1:09
yeah i think i
1:10
just wanted to to do a full episode on
1:13
pops and uh so here we go
1:16
i you know because
1:18
i think pops is just an inspiration both
1:21
musically and then learning his story
1:23
it's very inspirational the things he
1:26
overcame
1:27
and
1:28
you know being of course a part of the
1:30
civil rights
1:31
movement
1:32
and his upbringing during the you know
1:35
in the jim crow south and having a
1:38
grandfather that was a slave and a
1:40
parents that were sharecroppers and
1:43
you know having the success
1:45
that he had and the influence that he
1:47
continues to have to the point of
1:49
someone like steve cropper
1:51
in an interview said that
1:53
you know that was a reference point if
1:55
someone said give me some pop staples
1:57
that meant you know turn the tremolo on
1:59
and give me some you know kind of delta
2:01
blues playing and some big chords and
2:03
such so
2:04
so yeah today we're going to talk about
2:06
pops
2:07
so while you're thinking about it uh
2:09
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2:10
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2:12
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2:14
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2:16
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2:21
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2:25
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2:31
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2:33
other things besides uh you know besides
2:35
the videos and such things i've written
2:37
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2:39
on all right so let's just dive in
2:42
so he wasn't originally called pops his
2:45
given name is roebuck so robux staples
2:47
was born
2:49
December 28
2:51
1914
2:53
in Winona Mississippi he was born to
2:56
warren and Florence staples
2:59
warren and Florence were sharecroppers
3:01
which was kind of one step removed from
3:03
slavery
3:04
it was a
3:06
situation where the land owner kept the
3:08
sharecropper in permanent debt
3:11
his
3:12
grandfather William was a slave and who
3:16
was freed and lived to be 103
3:20
roebuck saw the situation he saw
3:24
the
3:25
the really bad treatment that he
3:27
received
3:29
by the white society of the south
3:32
and he didn't really like
3:35
working in the fields
3:37
and he started looking for other ways to
3:39
make a living
3:41
one thing he saw was barefoot fighting
3:44
where he would you know gamblers would
3:46
pay for him and someone else to go at it
3:50
and evidently he was pretty good at it
3:52
but uh luckily for all of us instead of
3:55
continuing to fight
3:57
he uh he went with another passion that
4:00
he could make more money than picking
4:02
cotton and that was playing guitar and
4:05
singing
4:06
and he was he was influenced by blues
4:09
delta blues players like Charlie Patton
4:12
and he began uh you know playing and
4:15
singing and he would sing at house
4:16
parties
4:18
that was a way for him to uh to make
4:20
money and uh you know while people slow
4:22
danced together and then they'd have uh
4:25
you know
4:26
food in the kitchen and moonshine or a
4:28
still or something like that for uh for
4:30
people to
4:31
get their drink on
4:33
so
4:35
that's kind of the environment uh
4:37
roebuck is in
4:38
and there's also kind of the rub and
4:41
just like there is in in white society
4:43
and black in all society between the
4:45
church and playing secular music and so
4:48
he was kind of getting pressure from his
4:51
parents that blues was not okay
4:54
but roebuck started to see that there
4:56
there could be a way in which blues and
4:58
gospel kind of work together
5:00
and that was with the blind willie
5:02
Johnson and he had a song called uh
5:05
let's see dark was the night cold was
5:07
the ground and it's a wonderful and
5:10
eerie tune and I'll I'll put that in the
5:12
playlist so you can hear that
5:15
song that was an inspiration so
5:17
he kind of felt like after hearing that
5:20
that you could kind of bring together
5:22
those influences that he had because it
5:24
certainly was a uh a religious tune
5:27
being done by you know i guess what you
5:29
would consider a uh a blues you know
5:32
guitarist and singer
5:34
so from there he marries and they have
5:37
their first child cleotha
5:39
and
5:41
pop starts
5:42
thinking about getting out of the south
5:45
and finding other possibilities finding
5:48
other type of work
5:50
so he saves up the money and he goes by
5:52
himself to Chicago he gets a job working
5:55
in a slaughterhouse which is where the
5:57
song killing floor comes from that was
6:00
you know of course not written by pops
6:02
but uh it comes from the the big huge
6:04
slaughter slaughterhouses that were in
6:06
Chicago where
6:07
animals were being killed all day long
6:11
pops worked there and then worked for a
6:13
variety of other places
6:15
and until he was he was able to to get
6:17
enough money to to get an apartment and
6:20
to move his family up there
6:21
and in Chicago his other children were
6:24
born you know of course Purvis mavis and
6:28
Yvonne
6:29
and uh
6:33
and at that point and Cynthia later on
6:35
and uh who's the youngest
6:37
and um
6:40
during this time pops had kind of put
6:42
the guitar down so that he could
6:44
concentrate on you know making a living
6:47
and being a good father
6:50
but once things kind of start getting
6:52
settled he starts thinking about music
6:54
again and he starts getting together
6:56
with some other musicians
6:58
and trying to you know maybe put a band
7:00
together well what he finds out is that
7:03
no one
7:04
is as dedicated or serious about it as
7:06
he is
7:08
now at this point he probably could have
7:10
you know
7:11
gotten upset and moaned and just
7:13
complained or something like that but he
7:16
didn't
7:17
what he did
7:18
was inspiring and
7:21
he went home
7:23
and he got his guitar out and he taught
7:25
his family to sing
7:28
wow
7:29
and so he would
7:31
pull out his guitar and show a chord and
7:34
and say
7:35
you know Purvis you sing this note mavis
7:37
using this note clay with a using this
7:40
note
7:41
and uh yeah that's that's inspired
7:44
that's fantastic and so
7:46
they worked up a handful of songs and
7:49
they had their first gig singing at a
7:50
church
7:52
and it kind of uh
7:53
you know
7:54
that started the roller coaster and soon
7:57
they were they had to learn more
7:58
material they had to get more songs
8:00
together and all of it was based around
8:04
pops you know kind of delta blues type
8:06
guitar playing and then the family's you
8:09
know harmony sound
8:12
and they eventually get a record deal
8:13
with united and then later on with
8:17
with vj and it's vj is where they really
8:19
hit their stride and they find their
8:21
sound and again the sound is around
8:24
pops guitar and vocals and the rest of
8:27
the you know the the families you know
8:29
harmony vocals and of course
8:31
you know purpose and and mavis were also
8:34
you know singing lead and mavis quickly
8:37
became
8:38
the vocalist uh that that everyone
8:41
focused on because of her contralto uh
8:44
uh low singing that deal with uh
8:47
just just an
8:48
amazing vocal style
8:51
so
8:53
their sound kind of continues to be
8:55
honed in
8:57
and then
8:59
the folk boom happens
9:01
and people become focused on old folk
9:04
music but also there's protest music
9:06
going on
9:07
and you have the rise of a fellow named
9:09
bob Dylan
9:11
and bob Dylan ends up being on some
9:14
shows
9:15
with the staples and they get to know
9:18
each other
9:19
and
9:20
they end up you know performing some of
9:23
bob's tunes like blowing in the wind and
9:26
if you think about the the opening lines
9:27
to the tune i think that
9:29
you can see how that would uh resonate
9:32
with a black man that was born in the
9:35
jim crow south
9:37
and other tunes like a masters of war
9:40
and a hard reign is going to fall
9:43
so
9:44
also you have of course the civil rights
9:46
movement that's
9:48
already been
9:49
gaining steam all through the 50s and
9:51
and really kind of hitting uh you know
9:55
you know going full steam ahead in the
9:56
early 60s
9:58
and they're they're of course working
10:00
with martin Luther king jr and
10:04
and they're being part of part of that
10:06
movement and they're they're singing
10:08
these songs they're singing this little
10:10
light of mine and these
10:11
other tunes and they uh they're on the
10:14
riverside label for a while and but the
10:16
riverside label ends up going uh going
10:19
belly up and then move over to epic
10:22
and
10:23
on epic
10:25
they they release a really great album
10:27
it's a live album called freedom highway
10:30
and interestingly enough it's produced
10:31
by Billy Cheryl who of course is in
10:34
Nashville
10:35
uh he's passed away
10:37
but he was the producer on so many tammy
10:39
winette and George jones
10:42
albums and of course Charlie rich and
10:43
many others legendary Nashville producer
10:46
but he produced
10:47
freedom highway and that is a
10:49
fantastic album where you really get a
10:51
taste
10:52
of
10:53
a mixture of their gospel and protest
10:56
tunes
10:57
and by this point they have a drummer
10:59
and they have
11:00
Philip church you know playing bass and
11:03
Philip church of course a amazing
11:05
Chicago area guitarist and bass player
11:08
that
11:09
did everything from you know playing
11:11
with Donnie Hathaway to uh
11:13
you know playing bass on George Benson
11:16
records and touring with him and such
11:18
but on freedom highway
11:20
you get to hear something that i hadn't
11:22
really
11:23
noticed a whole lot and that's that pops
11:25
didn't have the tremolo on all the time
11:27
so when they do freedom highway
11:29
he doesn't have the tremolo on
11:32
you know yet on others you can hear you
11:33
know on other tunes on the same album
11:35
you hear him turn it on so when they do
11:36
that one and it's it's he played a lot
11:39
of things in the key of e and so this is
11:40
kind of a side on his playing and i'll
11:42
just play this real quick you get this
11:44
[Music]
11:54
so but there's no tremolo on it but then
11:56
you can hear it when he brings it back
11:57
in you know on some of the other tunes
11:59
like when they do uh saints go marching
12:01
in or some of the other tunes where you
12:02
get that
12:07
that beautiful tremolo that he would
12:09
that he would get
12:10
so
12:12
after epic
12:14
they sign with stacks
12:16
now i need to take one step back and
12:19
mention this about bob Dylan
12:22
is it most people don't know that uh
12:25
you know bob Dylan asked mavis uh to
12:28
marry him
12:29
and they kind of saw each other for a
12:31
while and
12:33
that blew my mind i thought that was
12:35
fantastic
12:36
and yeah good on bob Dylan
12:39
so it's too bad that didn't happen but
12:42
yeah i thought that was a really neat
12:44
story so back to the timeline so uh
12:48
so they end up signing with stacks and
12:50
they do a record with a record or two
12:52
with Steve cropper producing
12:55
and uh you also get the jam together
12:57
album which is of course pops along with
13:00
albert king
13:01
and uh and Steve cropper and that's an
13:04
interesting album it's a bit of a
13:06
mishmash i mean it you know
13:08
it's uh but it's it's neat to hear you
13:10
know those guys playing together
13:12
but uh with cropper leaving stacks in
13:16
around 1970
13:19
they uh
13:20
al bell who was the president of stax at
13:23
that point
13:24
he starts using uh the swampers down in
13:27
muscle shoals
13:28
well unfortunately what that means is a
13:31
departure away from pop's guitar playing
13:35
so once they start using the muscle
13:36
shoals cats which of course included you
13:39
know the great David hood on bass which
13:41
she even references and I'll take you
13:42
there and play it little David
13:44
jimmy Johnson playing rhythm guitar and
13:46
he had Eddie Hinton playing a lot of
13:48
lead guitar on those tracks Eddie Hinton
13:50
another muscle shoals great artist
13:52
songwriter guitarist
13:54
but uh
13:56
yeah as good as those records are it's
13:58
really
13:59
a huge departure from their original
14:01
sound it brought them greater success
14:03
but it's
14:05
totally you know it's so different
14:07
than the gospel or the protest things
14:10
that were you know a lot based around
14:12
pop's guitar playing
14:14
so but by the time the 80s come around
14:16
um mavis has gone solo uh the band has
14:21
kind of the staple singers have
14:23
disbanded
14:24
uh pops is doing like you know he's
14:27
doing some shows you know by himself
14:29
usually just him in a guitar
14:32
usually festivals
14:34
and uh
14:35
they only kind of get back together for
14:37
like award shows and certain ceremonies
14:39
and things like that
14:41
pops does a record with rykuter
14:44
and finally before
14:47
before pop's you know passing
14:50
he he made a record uh and gave the
14:53
master to mavis and said don't lose this
14:55
and so that's what they named it and
14:57
that came out a number of years ago i
14:59
believe jeff tweedy was involved in
15:00
getting getting that out
15:02
with help from mavis
15:04
so that's kind of
15:06
the uh the pop's story you know kind of
15:09
the short and condensed version
15:11
and this is where things kind of
15:13
continue in an interesting way after his
15:15
passing
15:17
so
15:18
mavis continued to perform and more as
15:20
an r b outfit
15:23
and meaning kind of staying with the
15:25
stacks sound like i'll take you there
15:27
era and a band that's reproducing that
15:29
sound
15:31
well she ends up playing a show
15:34
in in santa monica california well she's
15:38
set to play show and the rick holmstrom
15:41
trio is opening
15:43
well rick holmstrom's playing you know
15:45
their opener
15:47
and also the promoter starts to tell him
15:49
you know play more play more play more
15:51
well rick in his little trio play a
15:53
couple more tunes then they find out
15:55
that mavis's band has not shown up
15:58
evidently there was a problem with the
15:59
flight
16:00
and they didn't make it and so the
16:02
promoter asked them to back up mavis
16:04
well
16:05
how are they supposed to know mavis
16:06
tunes they didn't you know they're
16:08
they're not prepared they're not
16:09
rehearsed but they do they they do it
16:11
anyway
16:12
they uh the show must go on and so
16:15
rick backs up uh mavis
16:18
and
16:20
rick told me and this was in an
16:21
interview that i did with rick for the
16:22
true tone lounge he says there was this
16:24
funny looking guy off stage who was
16:27
really digging what we were doing and
16:29
after the show
16:30
he talks to me and it ends up it was rai
16:32
cooter so rykuter was producing an album
16:35
on mavis at that point
16:38
and it was going back to her old style
16:41
with her dad you know the old 50s and
16:44
60s you know kind of smaller combo sound
16:47
and of course
16:49
cooter loved rick's playing and loved
16:50
his band and loved the sound of them
16:52
together and so it's rye cooter
16:55
that convinces mavis to shed her old
16:59
band
17:00
and to hire rick and his little you know
17:03
his trio and then also they get some
17:05
background singers
17:08
and uh they
17:10
basically kind of reproduce the old
17:12
staples sound you know and uh you know
17:15
what but modernized
17:17
and uh and that's what she's been doing
17:19
for the last
17:20
over a decade
17:22
and she's still performing she's 82 at
17:24
this point and still touring and uh
17:27
and if you see clips of them you know
17:29
with rick playing guitar you know he
17:31
very much
17:32
pays tribute to pops without aping or
17:35
mimicking him so and it's a really
17:37
beautiful thing i have to note here that
17:39
one other
17:40
background vocalist donnie you know
17:43
passed away recently so i'm sorry for
17:45
their loss
17:47
uh let's talk about pops's uh his sound
17:52
and the guitars and the gear and stuff
17:54
that he used through the years so
17:56
earl the earliest photograph show him
17:58
with a big okay arch top that has no
18:00
pickup on it so i'm guessing that's what
18:02
he played you know early on before they
18:04
started recording
18:07
their earliest publicity photo with vj
18:10
shows him with an orpheum guitar
18:13
and you okay are you you asked what's an
18:17
orpheum guitar well
18:19
there was a distributor named uh by the
18:22
name of maurice lipsky i believe and
18:25
orpheum was a brand name that they owned
18:28
and so they would order guitars from
18:30
harmony
18:31
and k and other places and they would
18:33
have their name put on there so orpheum
18:36
was their in-house brand just like
18:38
silvertone was the in-house brand for
18:40
sears
18:41
so this orpheum guitar that pops is seen
18:45
in this
18:46
promo picture
18:47
it looks to be one that was made by
18:49
united guitar of new jersey which also
18:52
supplied
18:53
bodies for diangelico because
18:56
john
18:57
wouldn't do a hand carved guitar body
19:01
for an electric guitar so when someone
19:03
wanted an arch top with an electric
19:05
pickup he would just get a body from
19:07
united and that's but that says the
19:10
quality of their work they also
19:12
uh you know they they made bodies and
19:14
necks for premiere
19:16
which you always have to be careful when
19:18
you say premier guitar people think the
19:19
magazine but premiere was a guitar and
19:21
amp
19:22
maker in the 50s and 60s and they made a
19:26
lot of these really cool guitars that
19:28
usually had a lot of bling on them they
19:30
had that kind of accordion
19:32
sparkly covered you know look and some
19:34
of them had kind of like scroll work
19:36
like a mandolin and
19:39
anyway united made
19:41
bodies and necks that premiere you know
19:43
kind of put together and then added
19:44
extra bling to so
19:46
and it's neat because it has friends
19:48
pickups uh those are those white pickups
19:50
that look kind of like mini humbuckers
19:52
but they're they're really kind of like
19:54
p90s so
19:56
that's
19:57
that's possibly what he played but
19:59
there's also another promo picture of
20:01
him holding a
20:03
les paul gold top with p90s so it's
20:06
probably either the orpheum or the gold
20:08
top that he probably used on the vj
20:11
stuff
20:12
now there's reports of him playing a
20:14
strat
20:15
at some point but there's no pictures of
20:18
him playing that you you know by the
20:20
time you get up later you start seeing
20:22
him play a jazz master by 59 or 60.
20:25
now let's hit on the again you know the
20:27
amp
20:28
and we don't know what amp he used in
20:30
the 50s we do know that he said that he
20:33
used a tremolo box in the 50s
20:36
and that can pretty much mean only one
20:38
thing and that's the diamond tremolo and
20:40
the diamond tremolo was probably the
20:42
first
20:43
effect pedal or effect you know kind of
20:45
device that was released it was released
20:47
in 1946
20:49
and it used a canister
20:52
that it would shake and that would
20:54
produce
20:55
the tremolo sound and it had some type
20:57
of conductive liquid in it
21:00
and that's what pops used up until he
21:03
started you know playing amps that had
21:05
tremolo on them
21:07
and uh those the arm and tremolos are
21:10
very expensive uh you know if you look
21:13
for one they're probably going to be in
21:15
at least the thousand dollar range up to
21:17
you know probably in the 1500 to 2 000
21:19
range and uh according to billy gibbons
21:22
you know you can uh
21:24
refill it with windex and that will keep
21:26
the the canister working and passing
21:29
uh electrical signal
21:31
so
21:33
uh then we kind of get up to the the
21:35
late 50s and he starts playing a jazz
21:38
master and you see him playing one with
21:39
an anodized you know gold anodized pick
21:42
guard
21:43
then you see him playing one with a
21:44
tortoiseshell guard then you see him one
21:46
with a tortoiseshell guard with a strat
21:48
pickup in the middle and it's got
21:50
instead of the normal three-way switch
21:52
it's got three mini switches like a
21:54
jaguar and it's like what's going on
21:56
here so i'll
21:58
post a picture of that
22:01
yeah
22:02
then you get another another jazz master
22:05
with
22:07
with block inlays and binding on the
22:09
neck you also see him play jaguar for a
22:11
bit
22:12
and uh
22:14
but the jazz master kind of seems to be
22:16
what he plays for a lot of a lot of
22:17
times a lot of the time in the in the
22:19
60s and into the early 70s he's even
22:22
playing that on the watt stacks
22:24
thing
22:25
i think then we kind of get into the
22:26
guitar that a lot of people like to
22:28
think about pops even though he didn't
22:30
use it during any of the 50s and 60s and
22:32
that's the rosewood tele and just
22:35
because it's a cool guitar and he
22:37
modified it
22:38
either he or someone else did with a
22:40
wide range humbucker in the neck
22:42
position
22:43
and that's just a cool looking guitar
22:45
and that's what you see him play on the
22:46
last waltz that's what you see him you
22:48
know in a lot of the footage of them
22:50
doing i'll take you there some of their
22:52
you know 70s r b hits a lot of times you
22:54
see him playing that guitar that's what
22:56
he played through the 80s and early 90s
22:58
before
22:59
then after that he played a variety of
23:01
of newer strats and including strat
23:03
ultras and a parker fly and all sorts of
23:06
different things but
23:08
yeah including there's some footage of
23:10
him playing the the jazz master again
23:13
but uh yeah that was kind of his sound
23:16
uh the only thing we know amp-wise is
23:18
that by the mid-60s he was definitely
23:19
using a fender twin and that was his amp
23:21
of choice and so if it was a fly date
23:24
or rental situation he would ask for a
23:26
fender twin and he had some type of code
23:29
language that he would use that
23:30
apparently only mavis no you know like a
23:33
ultra you know whatever it was but
23:35
anyway the point was that he wanted a
23:37
you know a twin reverb with uh with
23:40
tremolo on it so that he could get his
23:41
sound but uh
23:44
yeah
23:45
i just
23:46
really love pop's guitar playing and the
23:49
work of the the staple singers here's a
23:52
quick aside on the name so when you say
23:54
their names
23:55
it's staples but on the record it's
23:58
staple
23:59
so it's pops
24:00
staples
24:02
of the staple singers
24:04
i know that that always confuses me but
24:06
uh yeah
24:09
i think
24:10
i was really inspired by pop's story by
24:13
the fact that the things that he
24:15
overcame and the things that he was a
24:16
part of and
24:19
you know the fact that he just didn't
24:20
get down in the dumps you know he just
24:22
he kept getting up and he kept doing new
24:25
things and he kept uh trying and working
24:27
hard
24:28
and uh much much respect to him i also
24:31
love the fact that reading about him i
24:34
found out about how he was kind of a
24:36
father figure to you know people
24:39
like
24:40
you know curtis mayfield
24:42
you know or or bobby womack and you know
24:45
a lot of others you know looked up to
24:47
him and
24:48
and he you know influenced probably
24:50
their musically also but they uh they
24:53
loved his music and they loved him as a
24:55
man
24:56
it's here that i need to think
24:59
i need to give credit where credit is
25:00
due you know of course i've read about
25:03
you know mavis and heard stories from
25:05
rick holmstrom like in my true zone
25:07
lounge interview with him but uh this
25:09
book was extremely helpful and i highly
25:11
recommend this uh so this is i'll take
25:13
you there mavis staples the staple
25:16
singers and the music that changed the
25:18
civil rights era by greg kott so i'll
25:20
put a link an amazon link in the in the
25:24
description this is a great book it's
25:26
well written and if you are interested
25:29
in learning more about
25:31
the staple singers and mavis you really
25:33
ought to pick it up it's a very well
25:35
written well done
25:37
all right guys well as usual i'll have a
25:39
you know spotify playlist and uh
25:43
you know with uh some pops and the
25:45
staples and even some mavis stuff with
25:48
rick holmstrom and such because uh
25:51
that's that's good music and if you have
25:52
the chance
25:53
go see mavis you know she's 82. yeah
25:57
she's going to keep going as long as she
25:58
can and may she go on forever
26:01
thank you guys see you next time bye