Did you know The Staple Singers toured with Martin Luther King? I didn’t either (and if you did, good for you). But I glad that I know now. I love The Staple Singers.
Oh, by the way, here is what you came here for, King’s favorite Staple Singers song: “Why? (Am I Treated So Bad?)“
I urge you to watch this live performance. To hear Roebuck Staples, the Mississippi-born patriarch of the famed civil-rights, gospel group, The Staple Singers, as he draws us in with his electric fender is spellbinding.
“That grooviest syncopated intro that drops into it. Pops is the coolest dude and whatta band,” wrote YouTube fan @CuriousSense1.
Why am I treated to bad
You know I’m all alone
While I sing this song
Hear my call
I’ve done nobody wrong
But I’m treated so bad
Otherwise known as Pops, Roebuck went to see Martin Luther King, Jr. preach in Montgomery, Alabama in 1963, just as his family’s musical career was blooming off the ground.
Pops and King shared the same vision: only peaceful protest was the path to forging civil rights. The Staple Singers started to sing “call to action” songs, meaning those that speak to people and galvanize them into action.
The other day I was listening to an old Staples album and noticed the release date: 1968, the year a white supremacist murdered King on his hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.
Here was the song that was on my mind (it’s a fitting tune for the student protest movement): “Don’t You Let Nobody Turn You Around.”
Ain’t gone let nobody turn me around
Keep on walking, keep on talking
Keep marching until I’m free
Ain’t gone let brutality turn me around
Keep on walking, keep on talking
Keep on marching until I’m free
Ain’t gone let my mother turn me around
Keep on walking, keep on talking
Keep on marching until I’m free
Here’s another: “Let’s Get Together,” a jumpy, Tina Turner-esque, assertive anthem with a proposed solution of love to bridge the racial divide.
Some will come and some will go
And we shall surely pass
When the one who’s left us
Returns for us at last
Come on people, smile on your brother
Let’s get together and love
Ashley Elizabeth Miller 
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