Interview with Candi Staton (original) (raw)
Soul Express Interview
By Heikki Suosalo
� On August 19 Candi performed here in Helsinki at the Flow Festival and gave a great show singing her 70s gems, some gospel and finishing with two of her most popular secular recordings today, Young Hearts Run Free and _You Got the Love._� During her stay in Finland I had the pleasure to talk with Candi about some points of her career.
� Canzetta Maria Staton was born in the rural Hanceville, Alabama.� The family was poor, and for Candi one of the escapes from reality became music.� Candi remembers that at a church �picnic� type of a meeting �one particular Sunday they brought this little girl and she sang a song, and the place went wild.� That planted the seed, �I wanna sing, like her�.� That desire became bigger and bigger in my heart.� I started trying to sing.� At first nothing really happened with my voice, but I guess I was training myself and didn�t even know it.� But I got good.� My mother�s friend overheard me one day and she told my mother I could sing, but my mother said �no, she can�t.� I�ve heard her humming around, and she can�t sing�.� My mother�s friend went directly to my pastor.� He believed her and called me up one morning.� I was five or going on six.�
� Candi became a member of a gospel quartet formed by her pastor, but soon after that, due to her father�s worsening behaviour (father passed away in 1958), the family had to leave him behind and move to Cleveland.� From there Candi and her sister Maggie went to school in Nashville, Tennessee, and together with Naomi Harrison formed the Jewel Gospel Trio.� Their first gospel single came out on Aladdin by the end of 1953 (Rest, Rest, Rest/At The Cross) to be followed by _I Shall Know Him/Over There._� (There may be a single even before those two on an obscure Nashville label).� Nashboro Records picked the group up and released five singles between 1955 and �58, including the recently re-released Too Late.
� Candi moved back to Alabama, where her mother had also relocated, got pregnant and married for the first time in 1959, had four children but got divorced seven years later.� Before that she�d had a big crush on Lou Rawls.� The Jewel Gospel Singers kept on recording and cut dozens of records for Savoy between 1963 and �66.� �I don�t know where they are.� I don�t know who has them, because everybody, who had anything to do with them at all, is dead.� My sister had a lot of them, but she was moving to Atlanta and the truck had an accident and everything was destroyed.� I have a few tracks.�
STAND BY YOUR MAN
� By early 1968 Candi had quit church music, started working at a club in Birmingham and met **Clarence Carter.**� It was, however, about a year later that Candi met Clarence again in Alabama and this time agreed to tour with him.� In the meantime she had fled from her jealous husband to Cleveland to work in a hospital.� Soon one thing led to another, and Candi and Clarence got married in 1970.
� Clarence recorded with Rick Hall at Fame, so it was only natural that Candi�s first secular single came out on that label, too.� I�d Rather Be An Old Man�s Sweetheart (Than A Young Man�s Fool) hit # 9-r&b and # 46-pop in the summer of 1969.� Equally popular or still bigger hits were ahead: I�m Just a Prisoner, Sweet Feeling, Stand By Your Man, He Called Me Baby, In the Ghetto.�
� �I recently saw Rick Hall in New York.� I got a chance to hug him and talk to him.� Rick was Rick.� Rick knows exactly what he wants, and he doesn�t stop until he gets it.� I was in my twenties, but he made me sing songs over and over and over again. He wanted to get that hoarseness in my voice.� When we recorded, everybody was in the same room together and everybody would be looking at each other.� Maybe I would do something with my voice and Jimmy Johnson, the guitar player, would just feel me.� Nowadays, when you do everything on keyboards, you don�t really get that feeling and the connection like you used to.� That�s what made that music so fantastic.�
� During her Fame period Candi cut a lot of country and pop songs, too.� �That�s my background.� I�ve listened to country music all my life.� That�s all we could hear down in Alabama � country, gospel and blues.� Rick would come to me and ask my opinion �hey, do you think you can do this�.� We didn�t have an arranger to come in and say �I�m gonna take this song and arrange it for Candi�.� All of us had our opinions how the music should go, so we tried different things.� If it didn�t work, we tried something else.� Some day we worked on a song all day, and all night.�� So far it�s been extremely difficult to have those Fame sides re-released.� �I told Rick the other day �you hang on to that stuff like you had a goldmine (laughing).� Why don�t you release that stuff and let people enjoy it�?� �I�m working on it�.�
� Two years ago Honest Jons released a compilation of Candi�s Fame material, which became immensely popular.� �I was honestly shocked.� I did not know it would do that well.� I was pretty much through with it.� I had gone on to other things and I was like �well, that was then and this is now�.� It really didn�t sell the first time it was out, so I�m not excited.� I was doing my tv show and I was doing my gospel records, so I wasn�t worried about it.� When it came out and it hit, I was surprised� but it was a good surprise.�
YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE
� After three Fame albums (I�m Just a Prisoner, Stand by Your Man, Candi Staton in 1970-72) and the final Fame single in 1973, Candi�s next three singles (As Long As He Takes Care Of Home was a sizeable hit) and the Candi album came out on Warner Brothers in 1974, but they were still produced by Rick Hall.� �David Crawford and I knew each other long before we recorded.� David used to live in Atlanta.� I went over to his studios several times.� He was writing songs to see, if I could sing them.� But I was on a contract with Rick Hall and Warner Brothers, so I couldn�t really do anything.��
� �Warner Brothers gave Rick one last album I was to do.� Rick knew that disco was coming in and the southern soul sound, the Muscle Shoals sound, the Stax sound and all of that was kinda fading out.� They told Rick that if that album didn�t work I would be free to sign with Warner Brothers without him.� And the record wasn�t a big seller.� I honestly believe they didn�t try to push it, to get rid of Rick.� I really believe Warner Brothers didn�t want to push it.� They wanted me as an artist.� Rick let me go, and I signed with Warner Brothers directly, and that�s when David came in.�
� �David and I had a lunch in LA.� I was in a very abusive relationship at that time (Candi�s third husband after she had divorced Clarence).� He was a promoter, but I didn�t know he had a dark side.� Before he met me, he was a big con artist.� He threatened my life many times and did a lot of dirty things to me.� I began to tell David about these things, and he wrote Young Hearts Run Free based on that.� It was like my life-story in a song� same as His Hands.� It�s similar to that.��
� �I flew in from North Carolina to LA the night before.� I got up eight o�clock that morning.� I did the entire album (Young Hearts Run Free on WB in �76) by 3 o�clock.� David was the kind of person, who knew what he wanted and he�d get it in one take.�
� After two more albums, one of which with Dave Crawford (Music Speaks Louder than Words) in �77 and �78 and one small single hit, a cover of Nights On Broadway, Candi produced her next two albums - Chance in �79 and Candi Staton in �80 - herself together with Jimmy Simpson, and although they were reasonably successful they didn�t have the same impact as Young Hearts.� �They didn�t have that Dave Crawford touch.� Dave was temperamental.� After we did Young Hearts Run Free, he got very angry, instead of being happy that we had a big hit.� He wasn�t happy, because he didn�t sing it.� He was a frustrated singer.� �I�m not producing you anymore, because I should have sung that song�.��
SUSPICIOUS MINDS
� After one single (Without You I Cry) on LA/Jamie in 1981, an album called Nitelites was released on Sugar Hill a year later, and it spawned two singles, Suspicious Minds and Count On Me.� �Warner Brothers had really lost interest in me.� They had other people coming in.� I really wasn�t doing anything with them, so I asked my contract back, and they gave it back to me � just like that!� So I was without a contract.� David surfaced again.� He called me up and said �I got a deal with Sugar Hill, and Joe Robinson is interested in you�.� I said �David, the only way I�m going back into the studio is that you won�t go crazy on me�.� �Oh, that�s over�.� So we did Suspicious Minds, and all that stuff.� It was one record on Sugar Hill, and that was it.� After that I got tired of the rat race.�
� Candi married for the fourth time in late 1980, this time with a drummer by the name of John Sussewell, and together after sobering up and finding religion in 1982 they formed a gospel label called Beracah (meaning �blessing� in Hebrew).� Starting from 1984 (Make Me an Instrument) they have released twelve new gospel and one Christmas album on that imprint, and musically they remind you of Candi�s soul albums, only with different lyrics.� Unfortunately, Candi�s marriage with John didn�t last, either.� �We separated eight years ago.� There were some ways about John that I couldn�t deal with.� He depended on me to work.� He sat back and played video games.� He was into computers.� As fast as I would make money, he would spend it.�
� Still in the 80s Candi said that in the future her music is devoted only to the Lord.� �Humans change their minds (laughing).� My pastor sat me down in the 90s.� He said �I need to talk to you.� Candi, those songs that you did in the 70s and in the 80s, they�re not bad songs.� They�re good songs.� Some of them you couldn�t sing because of the way you live now.� Young Hearts Run Free wasn�t bad;Stand by Your Man � those songs are classics.� Those songs were blessed.� They raised your children, they bought you home.� Rethink it.� You could go out and bless people again with those songs�.� It took me about five years to think about it.� Eventually, when the compilation came out, that�s when I began to really think seriously about doing them again.� Now I have a new gospel and new secular albums coming out.�
� Candi�s latest cd, His Hands, is an impressive concept of soul, country and inspirational music (you can read the review in �Deep # 1� from June on this website).� �That was the idea of all three of us, Mark Ainley (of Honest Jons), Mark Nevers (the producer) and myself.� I spent three months in Nashville recording it.�
� Two of Candi�s own children, Cassandra Hightower (background vocals) and Marcus Williams (drums), join her on the cd.� �My son Marcel plays bass and my son Terry is a percussionist.� But that�s not their main professions.� My youngest son, Clarence Carter Junior, owns truck trailers.�
� Of all the songs Candi has recorded during her career, the closest to her is Mama, a beautiful ballad dedicated to her mother.� It comes from the �95 It�s Time cd� which brings us to Candi�s latest compilation, The Ultimate Gospel Collection (Shanachie 5761; a 2-cd set; 150 min.).� It has 26 songs drawn from Beracah albums.� On the first, more downtempo disc the highlights are The First Face I Want to See, a shattering duet with Joe Ligon, the abovementioned Mama and one fast duet with Dottie Peoples called_Shut Up And Start Praying.�_ Here we also have Too Late, the Jewel Gospel Trio�s slowie from the 50s with some energetic singing from Candi.
� The second disc concentrates more on the uptempo material, and it also features You Got the Love (1986) with **The Source.**� As a bonus we have four new tracks, and of them It�s Your Season, Hallelujah Anyway Remix and I Will Rejoice In The house are all uptempo dancers with a house beat (must be the_You Got The Love_ influence).� The best of the new ones on the first disc is Grace, They Call It Amazing, an emotional ballad with real musicians throughout.�
� After all the trials in tribulations in her life, what role does the music play in her life?� �Music has always been like therapy.�
(A valuable source: This Is My Story, Candi�s autobiography.� Please visit www.candi-staton.com).
Heikki Suosalo