STAPLES JR SINGER

On tour: yes

Can you be a witness? The Staples Jr. Singers were part of a vanguard of gospel-soul artists in the 1970s who broke with tradition to witness with groove. When they wrote these songs – all of them stone-cold soul – they had one question in mind: When will we get paid?

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