CANDI STATON: MUSIC SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS (1977)
1) Nights On Broadway; 2) You
Are; 3) A Dreamer Of A Dream; 4) Music Speaks Louder Than Words; 5) Cotton
Candi; 6) Listen To The Music; 7) When You Want Love; 8) One More Chance On
Love; 9) Main Thing; 10) Before The Next Teardrop Falls; 11) Music Speaks
Louder Than Words (reprise).
Seeing as how the first track to be listed on
Candi's Saturday Night Fever era
record was a cover of ʽNights On Broadwayʼ, I expected the results to suck
seriously; all the more surprising was the discovery that this is far from the
least exciting albums of the disco period — in fact, even the Bee Gees cover is
quite welcome, replacing the original groove with a slightly more synthetic,
but also slightly more complex tapestry of synthesizers, strings, and brass;
the tempo is a little sped up and the slow bridge omitted altogether to adapt
the song even better to the contemporary club atmosphere, and Candi's lead
vocal is a fine replacement for the Gibbs (anyway, the single catchiest thing
on the song is the falsetto quickie of "blame it on the nights on
Broadway!" in response to the lead vocal, and that one is preserved with
all due respect), so this sort of explains why the single performed respectably
on the UK charts (ironically, the original Bee Gees version was never released
as a single in the UK, so perhaps British audiences were just too happy to
catch up on their forty-fives).
But even beyond the obvious hit, there are
quite a few niceties about the album, largely because of the songwriters behind
the music — ʽYou Areʼ is credited to George Clinton, and it is appropriately
funky, with a multi-layered bubbly wah-wah groove and triumphant brass; and ʽA
Dreamer Of A Dreamʼ comes from the stock of Allen Toussaint, a fine chunk of
disco-pop arranged in the «light musical phantasia» style of the likes of
Olivia Newton-John, but with a smart enough orchestral arrangement to be
tolerable. The strangest thing is the inclusion of an instrumental track, whose
only link with the artist is its title (ʽCotton Candiʼ) — no idea what producer
Bob Monaco was thinking, but apparently, a lot of control was in the hands of
horn and string arrangers like Rick Kellis and Ron Stockert, and maybe they
wanted to have their efforts appreciated on their own for once, without any
annoying disco singers on top of their «body music art».
Weirdest inclusion of all, no doubt about it,
is Paul Kelly's ʽMain Thingʼ — a more blatant rip-off of ʽSuperstitionʼ, right
down to the funky clavinet rhythm track and the descending brass riff, could
not even be imagined, except that they pin it all on a disco bass line this
time; the only reason Stevie never sued is because he couldn't expect to reap
any serious financial benefits from an album that was doomed to commercial
failure from the start. That said, you have to listen right to the very end —
bass player Dennis Belfield eventually gets tired of laying down the same
chuggin' disco chords, and goes on a bit of a rampage.
Throw in a few gospel-tinged ballads with a
high level of energy (ʽBefore The Next Teardrop Fallsʼ), and the overall result
is a respectable follow-up to Young
Hearts Run Free, at least, as respectable as could possibly be expected of
a disco album with no ambitions, gimmicks, or dazzling feats of playing
technique. I'd give it a thumbs up, but it is kind of against my principles to
formally endorse non-outstanding disco records, and besides, behind all the
grooving and all the body heat and all the brass/string/keyboard razzle-dazzle,
the one thing that is lacking is the lead artist's personality — here, she is
being sucked into the whirlwind even tighter and faster than on Young Hearts Run Free: «music speaks
louder than words» indeed, and not in a sense that could be favorable to Candi
herself.
Nice voice but nights On Broadway is far inferior to the Bee Gees version.
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