Staples Jr. Singers

The Staples Jr. Singers were part of a vanguard of soul gospel artists in the 1970s that broke from tradition to testify with the groove. When they wrote these songs — all of them stone cold soul — they had one question on their minds: When Do We Get Paid?

“We were so strange and we were so young,” said Edward Brown, a singer in the Staples Jr. Singers, “and a lot of people didn’t understand that.”

Like many gospel groups at the time, the Staples Jr. Singers were a family band: Annie, A.R.C., and Edward Brown from Aberdeen, Mississippi. They were just teenagers when they started, in 1971—they named themselves after their idols (the Staple Singers, if we need to spell it out for you)—and they built a reputation by playing school talent shows and front yards near their hometown on the banks of the Tombigbee River, until they eventually began touring with regional acts on the gospel circuit.