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Candi Staton "The Sweetheart of Gospel"
Before disco caught on and Candi Staton became known for the #1 dance smash
"Young Hearts Run Free," she had begun her career in the stellar Jewel Gospel
Trio in the 1950's. After her big run as a secular star in the 1970's, she
returned to her gospel roots in 1982. Since then, she has developed a reputation
as a Charismatic praise and worship leader, a sensitive psalmist and the person
who first infused gospel with funk through her "gospco" songs such as "Dance"
and "Sing A Song" which merged disco rhythms with gospel lyrics. However, Candi
is equally known for her sweet ballads such as "Sin Doesn't Live Here Anymore"
and "Mama" as she is for her more high-energy material. Whatever she does is
sweet and that's why she's called the Sweetheart of Soul.
Candi is currently in the studio working on her first gospel cd since 2002's
"Proverbs 31 Woman" which featured the smash radio singles "Hallelujah Anyway"
and the bluesy "When There's Nothing Left but God." In the summer of 2006,
Shanachie Records will release all of Candi's best-known gospel hits on a
specially priced thirty-song 2- CD set that is tentatively entitled, "The Best:
Candi Staton's Gospel Hits." The project will feature all of Candi's classics
such as "Mama" and "The First Face I Want to See." It will also include four
brand new songs and previously unreleased material such as her rendition of
Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" and a club remix of "Hallelujah Anyway."
Born Canzetta Maria Staton in Hanceville, Alabama, Candi was a farming family.
When they weren't harvesting crops or picking cotton, they were in church. As a
child, Staton sang in the choir."The crowds would get very emotional," she
recalls. "At the time I didn't really know why they were crying so much…Once I
remember, the audience got so emotional, throwing their pocket books at my feet
and so on, that I got really scared and ran off to my mother." Staton's farther
was a hard drinker and a little prodigious with his money. Mrs. Staton took the
kids and moved the Cleveland where her oldest son lived. His wife took them to
her church, which was pastured by Bishop Jewel and asked if the Staton kids
could sing a song. They sang every song they had ever heard that night and for
the first time, a band backed them. Impressed by their obvious talent, Jewel
asked Candi (then ten years old) and her older sister, Maggie, to sing with her
group. She added Naomi Harrison to the line-up and they became the "Jewel Gospel
Trio".
The trio was an immediate hit with the church audiences. They recorded several
singles for Nashboro Records such as "I Looked Down the Line (And I Wondered)"
and "Too Late." The trio toured extensively, even overseas spots such as the
Philippines. They appeared on bills with the Staple Singers, the Soul Stirrers,
and Aretha Franklin among others. Mavis Staples remembers, "Canzetta was
something. I remember at one place in Shreveport the stage was real high. Back
then, gospel singers liked to go out into the aisles and work the crowd up.
Well, that stage was so high that none of the guys tried to jump down there that
night; but Canzetta sure ‘nuff jumped down there and got them worked up."
When she came of age, Candi left the group. "We were taken advantage of and I
left because of the misuse," she says. Instead of pursuing a career, Candi
pursued marriage and motherhood. However, after seven years of matrimony, she
had grown tired of her husband's jealousy and physical abuse. So when her
minister made a pass at her, she just snapped. "I said forget you, forget
church, and forget everybody. I'm through with God. Bye! And I said, ‘I'm gonna
sing the blues,' just like that." The big break soon followed. Her brother had
dared her to sing on amateur night at the 27/28 Club in Birmingham. She went up
and sang "Do Right Woman" and won a booking to open for Clarence Carter, her
future husband. He liked her and asked her to open for him on the road.
After hooking up with Clarence, Candi enjoyed smash Top 10 R&B hits such as "I'd
Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart (Than To Be A Young Man's Fool)", "Sweet
Feeling," "Stand By Your Man," "He Called Me Baby," "Mr. & Mrs. Untrue," "Too
Hurt To Cry" and "In The Ghetto"
which won a Grammy nomination and a personal letter of praise from Elvis
Presley. After 1976, Candi became a princess in the disco field with hits like
"Young Hearts Run Free," "Victim," "Nights On Broadway" and "When You Wake Up
Tomorrow."
In 1991 Candi became the British dance rage as a bootleg of a song she recorded
in 1986 entitled "You Got The Love" was remixed and became a Top Ten British hit
and sold two million copies. The song was reissued in both 1997 and 2006 and
charted in the British Top Ten again each time. After witnessing so many
divorces in the church, Staton decided to go into the studio and record a
relationship music cd entitled "His Hands" (Astralwerks/Honest Jons) that was
released in spring 2006. "In the church we sometimes focus so much on the
spiritual things that we neglect the natural things," Staton says."That's not
balance. While we're eon earth, we have to take care of our spouses and our kids
and be there for them. We can't be in worship all day or we won't be doing what
God has called us to do, so that project talks about issues that everyone goes
through - including Christians. The songs point to things that you should see as
signs of a problem in your relationships. I know some in the church still won't
understand it, but I have Biblical scriptures to back me up and if they want to
argue with scriptures, that's their choice." The gospel according to Candi
Staton and the Bible.
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We concentrate our efforts on serious inquiries of talent buyers. We are unable to answer
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