Candi Staton: Life Happens

CANDI STATON: LIFE HAPPENS (2014)

1) I Ain't Easy To Love; 2) Close To You; 3) Commitment; 4) For Eternity; 5) Even The Bad Times Are Good; 6) Beware, She's After Your Man; 7) Treat Me Like A Secret; 8) Where Were You When You Knew; 9) Three Minutes To A Relapse; 10) Never Even Had A Chance; 11) Go Baby Go; 12) My Heart's On Empty; 13) Have You Seen The Children; 14) A Better World Coming.

This is an even more ambitious comeback statement than Who's Hurting Now: with 14 tracks running over an hour, many of them self-penned, and featuring an even tighter and musically sharper band than last time, Life Happens is far more than anybody could expect in 2014 from a former B-grade R&B star that spent three decades in a restricted gospel niche. I have no idea how a «masterpiece» of traditional R&B could sound these days, even in theory, but when you are on nostalgic trips like these, what matters above everything else is devotion — and all these tracks are as fanatically devoted to bringing back the old soul vibe as Candi's albums from those past three decades were fanatically devoted to praising the name of the Lord.

I really don't know much about these musicians (except for Candi's son Marcus, who still helps her out with the drums on about half of the tracks), but they do a damn fine job with the grooves, although in terms of memorability it is the repetitive vocal hooks that will always come first. The best sound is on the tough funky numbers — ʽBewareʼ, ʽMy Heart's On Emptyʼ — but even the slowest ballads that come closest to feeble adult contemporary, like ʽWhere Were Youʼ, are never spoiled by excessive production, with acoustic guitars, electric slide, bass, and organ always taking priority over any synthesizer backup (if it's there at all). And, most importantly, Staton sounds like she really means it — whether it is a nostalgic love song she sings, or an angry social statement she makes, there is no doubt that it all comes straight from the heart this time.

Sure enough, the social statements may seem to be a bit of a joke: Desperate Anthems like ʽHave You Seen The Childrenʼ, lamenting the terrible fate of the younger generation, are lyrically shallow (yes, she does put all the blame on "video games and movies", if you can believe it), and even if the pain, anguish, and fear behind the performance are sincere, it is a little hard to empa­thize unless you happen to be an ex-PMRC member or something. This fear of the modern age even occasionally makes its way into the more personal Man/Woman tunes: on ʽBeware, She's After Your Manʼ, Candi reminds us that "we're living in the digital age" — somehow, that is sup­posed to make your man easily fall for the first camwhore he encounters — but do not judge the lady too harshly: she just has a fairly tight moral code, and if it helps her to make a damn fine record, so be it. Besides, no matter how bad things seem to be in The World According to Candi Staton, there is ʽA Better World Comingʼ anyway: the last track is written in the classic tradition of "everything sucks, but things are going to be better somehow even if there's not a single shred of evidence for this at the moment", even if we all have to die and go to Heaven to witness this (actually, I do believe that is the precise message of the song).

The majority of the songs, however, are about him and her (me and you), reflecting a certain degree of turbulence in the life of the singer — not too surprising, considering that she had just divorced her sixth husband (baseball player Otis Nixon Jr., 19 years her younger, if you want some yellow press details), so songs like ʽCommitmentʼ, a tight, Eighties-style pop-rocker along the lines of ʽEvery Breath You Takeʼ, have a very genuine ring to them — "what I'm searching for is a man who'll stand by me", she sings after six unsuccessful attempts, but the fun thing is, she is clearly not losing hope, though, as she admits herself on the very first track, "I ain't easy to love". Without making any judgements of character whatsoever, I must say that Candi's turbulent love life at least made for an interesting musical reflection — with the exception of some of those thoroughly faceless disco albums, there's a little bit of her personal story in every record she makes, and now that she's way past 70, that story has not ceased to be interesting.

Not to mention that for a 72-year old singer, she sounds awesome: I've always held the opinion that singers with «unexceptional» voices truly reap the benefits as they manage to outlast singers with «exceptional» ones, and this case confirms the rule — these days, having to choose between Candi and Aretha, I'd go for Candi without blinking: where 21st century Aretha sounds like a sorry shadow of her former self, Candi Staton goes on sounding... just like Candi Staton. Of course, that voice did sink about one octave lower, but that just added gravity and maturity, and she never tries to sing outside of her new range (unlike Aretha, who still likes to demonstrate how she can hit these high notes if she reaches up all the way on the very tips of her toes).

I do believe the record deserves a thumbs up, after all. Most likely, if she keeps on going like this, she is bound to lose it sooner or later, but as of 2014, there's taste, style, genuine feeling, power, an occasional catchy chorus — solid counterevidence to the statement that an old man (woman) ain't got nothing in the world these days.

Candi Staton: Who's Hurting Now?

CANDI STATON: WHO'S HURTING NOW? (2009)

1) Breaking Down Slow; 2) Who's Hurting Now?; 3) I Feel The Same; 4) Mercy Now; 5) I Don't Know; 6) Lonely Don't; 7) Get Your Hands Dirty; 8) Dust On My Pillow; 9) Cry Baby Cry; 10) I Don't Want For Anything; 11) The Light In Your Eyes.

But no, the story does not really end with Nightlites. Like Al Green, Staton spent nearly two de­cades doing nothing but gospel — enabling her to stay away from all the detrimental develop­ments in contemporary R&B — and like Al Green, she eventually re-emerged in the early 2000s: rested, rejuvenated, and behaving like the last two decades simply did not happen. In fact, neither did the later half of the Seventies, and that entire disco period was just a bad dream — as long as we can still remember Dave Crawford with a good word, this attitude suits me just fine, too. Her first new stint with secular music occurred on His Hands, recorded in 2006 for the British indie label Honest Jon's Records (founded with the assistance of Blur's Damon Albarn, no less), but the full-fledged comeback was Who's Hurting Now three years later, made at Abbey Road Studios with a bunch of American musicians, including Tony Crow from Lambchop on key­boards and Candi's own son Marcus Williams on drums.

The material here is mostly, if not all, modern, contributed by various contemporary songwriters who usually provide standard fodder for blues and country bands — so one shouldn't really ex­pect anything groundbreaking from this batch. What matters is not the melodies, but the sound of the whole thing: the record is executed strictly in late Sixties / early Seventies style, with a soul / gospel / funk / blues-rock vibe that defiantly ignores all the sonic advances of the modern century and reinstates faith in live musicianship over computer programming. Not that the musicianship is stunningly great or anything: all these Nashville cats that Candi brought over to London are good, but generally sound as if they were just working by the hour — and yet, even without exu­berance and excitement, it is still a pleasure to hear this sound in 2009.

Candi herself has audibly aged, sounding huskier and duskier than she used to, but there is still plenty of soul and conviction in her voice — well evident already on the opening number, the slow soul waltz ʽBreaking Down Slowʼ that points you in the main direction this music is going to take, that of the Tensely Aching Heart. Funky R&B grooves begin to arrive with the title track (cool weaving textures between two well-synchronized guitars and a well-mechanized brass sec­tion) and ʽI Feel The Sameʼ (funk-blues in the style of the dear departed Albert King), but the focus always resides on the singer, which is both a blessing and a curse: she's good, but not that good, and sometimes I quietly wish that the backing musicians had been given a more open chance to shine — there's hardly a single guitar solo anywhere on the album.

The overall reaction is a little mixed, because the main vibe seems confused: on one hand, the album relies a lot on personal tragedy and depressed nostalgia ("I've only just lost the best years of my life", she sings in a genuinely moving manner on ʽDust On My Pillowʼ), yet, on the other hand, this seems just like the kind of record she'd secretly dreamed of making ever since the early hits — one of those «I finally get to do things my way and my way only» moments of triumph, where the artist is clearly elevated by just the mere understanding that she is no longer being exploited by anyone and no longer has to conform to any particular fashion. These two emotions sometimes cancel out each other, confusedly disallowing for a proper sharpening of the feelings; but ultimately, it still comes together with a few nice personal anthems of contentment — ʽI Don't Want For Anythingʼ and ʽThe Light In Your Eyesʼ mix together her secular and gospel experi­ence in subtle ways that make these numbers, clichéd as they are, relatable; the way she delivers that final piece of advice, "don't ever lose the light in your eyes", is quite endearing.

I give the record a thumbs up for totally irrational reasons — had all these songs been recorded by, say, Bonnie Raitt, I'd probably pass them by completely, but somehow Candi just has this hard-to-explain charisma that makes them all seem deeper than they probably really are. Roughly speaking, she seems to believe in this stuff, and she seems willing to inject her personal expe­rience in it, and so, even in the absence of solid, original hooks, when you have a backing band with such a good sound, and a front singer with such a great heart, well, how would it be possible not to recommend this? And I haven't even thrown in the obligatory «hey, at least it's better than all that Rihanna crap» retort yet...

Candi Staton: Nightlites

CANDI STATON: NIGHTLITES (1982)

1) Love And Be Free; 2) Suspicious Minds; 3) In The Still Of The Night; 4) The Sunshine Of Your Love; 5) Hurry Sundown; 6) Tender Hooks; 7) Count On Me.

I am unaware of the details, but seeing the name of Dave Crawford, once again, as producer and occasional songwriter for this record, obviously suggests that he may have been brought back in one last, desperate attempt to revive Staton's career — maybe bless her with another ʽYoung Hearts Run Freeʼ or something like that. Unfortunately, it was too late, and not even a return to seductive sleeve photos could help. For sure, the return of Crawford means a slightly more subtle and inventive touch in the production department, but this time, he seems to have too many other things on his mind, and there are no particularly outstanding grooves or unusual approaches to instrumentation — in other words, nothing even close to the quality of ʽVictimʼ.

For one thing, the entire album stays way too bogged down in the already discredited disco idiom: the nadir is a straightforward disco arrangement of ʽSuspicious Mindsʼ, a song that I have never been a huge fan of, but in the light of this travesty, I will probably have to thoroughly re-evaluate the Elvis performance — the song is totally deconstructed here, stripped of its orchestral flou­rishes and reducing its formerly complex gospel-pop backing vocals to a much more simple (and poorly recorded) female choir, and Candi Staton is no Elvis anyway. When released as a single, the song totally flopped in the US (amazingly, it seems to have charted at No. 31 in the UK), faring even worse than the first single, the uplifting funk-pop anthem ʽCount On Meʼ.

Crawford's two songs are nothing particularly special either: ʽIn The Still Of The Nightʼ has a thick, growling groove provided by bassist Doug Whimbish (best part of the song is his mini-solo in the middle), but little else in its favor, and ʽThe Sunshine Of Your Loveʼ (nothing to do with the Cream song — see, they even put the definite article there to mark the difference) has nothing in its favor at all, other than, if you think about it long enough, you might appreciate the smart­ness of putting a «nighttime» and a «daytime» disco tune back-to-back (hint: the «daytime» song sucks with far more verve).

A few of the choruses have the catchy-through-repetition effect (ʽTender Hooksʼ), but the only song on the entire album that got me interested in its overall sound was the album opener ʽLove And Be Freeʼ, with its tricky mesh of effect-laden guitars and electronics — seems like Crawford had a lot of fun producing that one track, but then, apparently, he just lost interest in the rest of the album, so, despite a tiny increase in quality from Chance and Candi Staton, I still have no choice but to give it another thumbs down.

And that was the end of the line for Candi: after the record bombed once again, she decided that she'd had enough, and with her next album, Make Me An Instrument, declared (in the very first song) that ʽSin Doesn't Live Here Anymoreʼ, switching to a nothing-but-gospel career in the same fashion that Al Green did several years before — and spending the next twenty-plus years loyally and faithfully putting out a new gospel album every one or two years. I have no interest writing about any of these — reviewing a string of gospel albums by a B-level performer is way too much even for the standards of Only Solitaire completionism — but I've heard a few of those songs, and at least she sounded more comfortable singing them than she did trying to find life in all that generic disco crap, so more power to her.

Candi Staton: Candi Staton

CANDI STATON: CANDI STATON (1980)

1) Looking For Love; 2) Halfway To Heaven; 3) One More Try; 4) If You Feel The Need; 5) The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game; 6) It's Real; 7) Betcha I'm Gonna Get Ya; 8) Living Inside Me.

Usually the appearance of an album titled after the artist's name in the middle of the artist's career symbolizes a reboot of sorts — but there's nothing rebootable whatsoever in this record, a stereo­typical dance-pop successor to Chance, so I'm guessing this rather reflects a complete lack of inspiration. Yes, it is sad when the album's best track turns out to be a 14-year old cover (ʽThe Hunter Gets Captured By The Gameʼ), and, furthermore, one that adds practically nothing to the original — at least when Blondie covered the same track two years later, they completely rewor­ked the arrangement, but this here is a fairly loyal reproduction, weakened only by sterile touches of early Eighties' production.

Candi is a little more involved than usual this time, writing three of the songs and even self-pro­ducing a part of the album, but it does not help. Of these three songs, two (ʽHalfway To Heavenʼ and ʽIt's Realʼ) are generic ballads, one «modern» and one «retro», but both equally forgettable; and one (ʽBetcha I'm Gonna Get Yaʼ) is a dance-pop number so bland and faceless, it would probably make even the elevator cringe at the idea of having it played in it. For the single, they chose a composition by Andy Schwartz, the part-time keyboardist of Chic, ʽLooking For Loveʼ, and the best I can say about it is that it has a memorable-through-repetition chorus, oh, and disco bass king Norbert Sloley slaps up some cool lines, but that's about it. The single charted very modestly on the US R&B charts, then disappeared without a trace.

Supposedly this is the absolute nadir of Candi's career — here, her gradual reduction from a nice human being with a sharp sense of taste to a simplistic «musical roach» is complete, and even such a nice gesture as transferring some control over the creative process into the lady's own hands does not work: her songwriting talents are insufficient to overcome the bland standards of commercial R&B in 1980, and as a producer, well, she's no Prince for sure. At least the album cover photo does not strain so heavily to «sexualize» the artist, but then again, boring songs and not even any cleavage to make up for that? This is an insult for male chauvinist pigs worldwide, so clearly, a thumbs down is the only possible reaction. 

Candi Staton: Chance

CANDI STATON: CHANCE (1979)

1) Ain't Got Nowhere To Go; 2) When You Wake Up Tomorrow; 3) Rock; 4) Chance; 5) I Live; 6) Me And My Music.

Well, here's your oh-so-obvious answer to the question about what it is that makes a good or a bad disco album — the difference between House Of Love and its follow-up, Chance, pretty much says it all. For some reason, Dave Crawford is out, both as producer and songwriter, and the album ends up being nominally self-produced by Candi herself, with the supervising of Jimmy Simpson — the brother of Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson fame. Meanwhile, the songwriting is largely taken care of by Candi herself, or by a bunch of corporate donors who clearly have neither any interest in Candi Staton as an artist, nor in doing anything except supply­ing a steady stream of body-oriented grooves.

The result is an album as uninspired and stupid as House Of Love was inventive and supportive of the artist's personality. The only song worthy of some attention is ʽI Liveʼ, contributed by Ashford & Simpson in person — a slow, funky ballad rather than a straightahead disco groove, with a chance for Candi to burn some authentic soul, even if the arrangement still leaves much to be desired (no instrumental parts deserving of special attention). Everything else ranges from passable to ridiculous: ʽAin't Got Nowhere To Goʼ is at least reasonably short and reasonably complex, but the single ʽWhen You Wake Up Tomorrowʼ is completely dependent on its single musical phrase, never brought out of stasis due to the lame sound of the synthesizer — and then there's ʽRockʼ, which might just be the nadir of Candi's entire career. Here is a representative sample of the lyrics: "Why? Not? Rock? Rock! Rock! Why ? Not? Rock!", and it does not get much better when the lead vocal comes in, especially since the song has nothing whatsoever to do without «rock» in any possible meaning of the term, unless you really stretch it out to cover «corny disco shit» as well.

Neither the title track nor ʽMe And My Musicʼ on the second side make much of a difference: in fact, pretty much everything is interchangeable and never goes one step beyond the simple «give 'em a good vibe» message. And that smart touch of having Candi wrap things up with a strong gospel number? Apparently, it never caught on, even if it is precisely little things like that which make a world of difference. The less said about this Studio 54 blandness, the better; thumbs down without any further questions or comments. And you gotta love how they gave her that hip urban look on the photo, but never forgot about showing some cleavage all the same: trying to sell music like this without a bit of boobs is a marketologist's nightmare.

Candi Staton: House Of Love

CANDI STATON: HOUSE OF LOVE (1978)

1) Victim; 2) Honest I Do Love You; 3) Yesterday Evening; 4) I Wonder Will I Ever Get Over It; 5) I'm Gonna Make You Love Me; 6) So Blue; 7) Take My Hand, Precious Lord.

We know very well that not all disco albums suck as a matter of principle — but, strange enough, every now and then one is liable to come across a disco album that is perfectly ordinary and con­ventional, just a collection of very straightforward disco grooves without any experimentation or ultra-hot passion to singe your whiskers, yet somehow it feels surprisingly right: enjoyable, honest, devoid of special irritants. Candi Staton's second disco album, inauspiciously titled House Of Love and featuring the performer in her sexiest posturing ever on the front cover (still looks a bit like your mother, though), is a major improvement on her first one, even if the man behind it, Dave Crawford, retains full control over production and songwriting.

The highlight is ʽVictimʼ, an unexpectedly serious eight-minute disco rant where Candi com­plains how "I became a victim of the very song I sing", and then goes on to namedrop ʽYoung Hearts Run Freeʼ — formally, the song is about not following her own advice on the issue of commitment, but it can, of course, also be figuratively interpreted as a complaint about getting pegged as a one-hit wonder. Musically, the accompanying groove is smooth, polite, based around a fun, non-canonical disco bass riff played by Scott Edwards, and some playful and tasteful key­board and brass overdubs (keyboards in question including vibraphone and clavinet, rather than generic synthesizers), with a lengthy instrumental interlude that is every bit as engaging as the vocal sections — basically, the kind of material that fully justifies the art of the extended disco groove: «intelligent dance music» way before the term was hijacked for something completely and utterly different.

The rest of the tracks are neither quite as catchy nor as inventive in terms of arrangements, but I'd still have almost any of them over your average Olivia Newton-John of the same time. ʽHonest I Do Love Youʼ has a catchy and captivating vocal hook (even if it may get repeated way beyond any rational measure), accentuated by sharp slide guitar licks and even something that sounds like a... sitar? Whatever; plucked strings give the tune a bit of a psychedelic sheen, as opposed to the more conventional bowed strings. ʽI Wonder Will I Ever Get Over Itʼ is a pretty rhythmic ballad; ʽSo Blueʼ skips disco overtones in favor of a more traditional doo-wop approach, but still with plenty of tension; and only the old classic ʽI'm Gonna Make You Love Meʼ, on which Candi actually duets with Crawford, functions here like generic corny disco — let alone the embarrassing moment where Candi has to sing "every minute every hour, I'm gonna SHOWER!", and it takes at least a second or so for the listener to understand that this is not the end of the line (the correct lyric is "I'm gonna shower... you with love and affection!"). (She does look like that front cover photo was taken in the shower, though, so there might as well be something to it).

As a final surprise gesture, the last song is neither disco nor doo-wop, but a traditional gospel number: just Crawford at the piano, and Candi behind him, belting out ʽTake My Hand, Precious Lordʼ like she'd just gotten a huge kick out of Aretha's Amazing Grace, or, better still, a pack of old Mahalia Jackson records. She's not exceptional, but she's real good; allegedly, she just did that bit of gospel as a vocal warm-up, but Crawford decided the results were too good to miss, and thus, perhaps, inadvertently set her up on the road that would eventually lead her to a full-time career in gospel several years later.

The real good news here is that Candi seems to have found a way to «restore» a bit of her perso­nality, and reintroduce some serious soul into the material — without making any particularly wrong moves, such as oversexing it, pulling a Donna Summer when such a thing would quite obviously lead to fake posturing and embarrassment. She succeeds in being herself here, firmly planted on top of all the disco bells and whistles, and the bells and whistles ring and whistle their reverent praise of the artist, rather than overshadow her with shallow entertainment. A very decent effort on the whole, well deserving of a thumbs up; too bad that in the commercial sphere, if it was disco and it wasn't about sex or at least about not needing any education, it had few chances of selling. (ʽVictimʼ did get pretty high on the R&B charts, but that was it).

Candi Staton: Music Speaks Louder Than Words

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.

Candi Staton: Young Hearts Run Free

CANDI STATON: YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE (1976)

1) Run To Me; 2) Destiny; 3) What A Feeling; 4) You Bet Your Sweet, Sweet Love; 5) Young Hearts Run Free; 6) Living For You; 7) Summer Time With You; 8) I Know.

It is a little unlucky that Candi's big break had to come with the onslaught of the disco era, but at least she got her big break, unlike many less lucky souls — with a little help from producer and professional songwriter David Crawford, who ended up writing almost everything on her second LP for Warner Bros. The shift in tone is abrupt — while, technically, most of the songs here are «proto-disco» rather than proper disco, without the diagnostic basslines, Young Hearts Run Free is clearly a club-oriented dance record; and even if, at the time, this shift could be regarded by Candi herself as a fun change of image, in retrospect it joins the large number of similar shifts that ended up completely eroding the artist's personality and making him/her just another faceless face in the exuberant, carefree dance-pop crowd.

Yet, as it also often happens, it was not half bad the first time around. Crawford might be just a commercial hack, but he hacked out plenty of fun hooks for this record — mood-wise, 70% of these songs are interchangeable, yet some of them could stand their ground next to contemporary Bee Gees material. First in line is, of course, the title track, which seems to be pretty much the only thing that people remember about Candi Staton today — I'd much prefer her to be remem­bered by something like ʽI'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheartʼ, but it's hard to fight the appeal of a well-polished proto-disco groove when it is combined with a good vocal hook and a message of youthful optimism rather than bitter pragmaticism. (Actually, the song is pretty bitter — sung from the perspective of an abused wife envying the young people their freedom — but on the instinctive level, the only thing that matters is the anthemic "young hearts!... run free!" slogan).

Next to that one, ʽRun To Meʼ, ʽDestinyʼ, and ʽI Knowʼ sound like weaker clones of the big hit, but the vocal hooks are different enough to simply offer the people more of what they want with­out directly self-plagiarizing oneself. Slower ballads like ʽWhat A Feelingʼ are less exciting, but decently recorded — as is the cover of Al Green's ʽLiving For Youʼ, for which a pleasant bedrock is built out of tonally similar brass lines and slide guitars. The only properly corny song in the lot is ʽSummer Time With Youʼ, where they seem to be intruding on the Europop turf with dubious results (or maybe it's just that Candi tries too hard to be subtle, sensual, and seductive, with too much sexy breathiness — hardly the style of a gospel-bred R&B belter who once used to be a minor competitor for Aretha's crown).

Outside of all context, I would probably pass the record by in the end, but in the framework of her overall life trajectory, Young Hearts Run Free is a bit of a rejuvenating step forward — she may not be too responsible for the songs or the sounds, but Crawford seems to have been working in her interests, and gave her all this energetic, uplifting material to both alleviate her personal prob­lems and get her out of the rut she'd settled into by 1974. And while I can't properly put my fin­ger on it, or explain what it is exactly that makes these party-ready romps a tad more spiritualized than the average run-of-the-mill party-ready romps, I still trust that old intuition and give the record as a whole (not just its title track) a moderate thumbs up.

Candi Staton: Candi

CANDI STATON: CANDI (1974)

1) Here I Am Again; 2) Your Opening Night; 3) A Little Taste Of Love; 4) Going Through The Motions; 5) Stop And Smell The Roses; 6) We Can Work It Out; 7) As Long As He Takes Care Of Home; 8) But I Do; 9) Can't Stop Being Your Fool; 10) Clean Up America; 11) Six Nights And A Day.

For this album, Staton switched to Warner Bros., yet the recording sessions were still held at Muscle Shoals, so, technically, very little has changed, except for a divorce with Carter, meaning that the man was also removed from her professional life as well. (She did not repeat the mistake of mixing personal and professional, but allegedly she did marry an even bigger bastard in 1974, a promoter by the name of Jimmy James, who would torture her for about three years). Substan­tially, though, Candi continues a gradual slide into the realms of smooth soulful pleasantness, where everything sounds just about equally neat, tasteful, and interchangeable.

The only in-yer-face standout on the album is ʽClean Up Americaʼ, a lone statement of demand for social justice that is so thoroughly ambiguous in its demands, I'm frankly surprised why it for­got to be used in Trump's presidential campaign ("we gotta pitch in, and clean up America!" just sounds like such a perfectly Trump-ready slogan, and delivered by a black woman, no less) — sure it's a far less familiar song than ʽYou Can't Always Get What You Wantʼ or ʽRockin' In The Free Worldʼ, but with such a passionate, anthemic hook it would have caught on in no time. In the context of Candi, however, its major problem is that it stands alone — and gives the impres­sion of a last minute addition, to inject some social value, because Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder are doing it and if you, a female Afro-American performer, are not doing it, then you are compromising The Cause. Please be reasonable about it and observe the correct quotas, though. You are expected to deliver 1 song about social injustice and 11 songs about personal relationships — that's the expected female quota.

Speaking of personal relationships, I find it funny that (a) there is a song here called ʽWe Can Work It Outʼ, a lush piano ballad with string and brass support that has nothing to do with the Beatles' song of the same name; (b) the very next song, ʽAs Long As He Takes Care Of Homeʼ, is driven by a looping riff that is very similar, though not exactly coinciding, with the riff of ʽDay Tripperʼ — which, as we know, was the B-side to the original ʽWe Can Work It Outʼ! Coinci­dence, or a subtle joke on the part of the producers, with no deep meaning behind it whatsoever? Oh well, at least this gives us something to write about, because other than that, Candi stimulates no individualistic emotional reaction whatsoever. A few decent ballads, a few soft funk-rockers, well played and convincingly sung, but nothing new, and for each song you can find a sharper equivalent elsewhere.

For instance, ʽSix Nights And A Dayʼ, lifts the funky riff directly from ʽSuperstitionʼ, but the song does not even begin to approach the tension level achieved by little Stevie — remember, kids, it's not all about just the melody, it's largely about killer performance, and here, I am sorry to say, the musicians rallied behind Candi consistently let her down even when compared to the raw-gritty sound of her first record, let alone contemporary standards of some of the bigger names in the R&B industry. But on the positive side, there are some energetic numbers with cool syncopated guitars and brawny brass — which is a good thing to have in an era when even some of the bigger names in R&B (like Aretha Franklin) were beginning to drown in soft-rock mushi­ness and schlocky sentimentalism. So, by the average standards of 1974, Candi is doing quite fine, even as she finds herself ʽGoing Through The Motionsʼ.

Candi Staton: Candi Staton

CANDI STATON: CANDI STATON (1972)

1) Do It In The Name Of Love; 2) Darling You're All That I Had; 3) Blackmail; 4) In The Ghetto; 5) Wanted: Lover; 6) The Best Thing You Ever Had; 7) Lovin' You Lovin' Me; 8) I'll Drop Everything And Come Running; 9) You Don't Love Me No More; 10) The Thanks I Get For Loving You.

Another solid-to-boot offering, a little longer this time and without any cheap tricks like re-run­ning two songs from the previous album (now they re-run only one, ʽYou Don't Love Me No Moreʼ, but at least they had the good sense to remix it) — which isn't to say that there's a lot of interesting ob­servations one could make about the record. Everything here is about as plain and straightforward as its title and its cover photo. Her name is indeed Candi Staton (at least, I trust that information), and this is her, with a serious look in her eyes and a lot of Afro-American hair on that photo (I trust that information, too). And then we have ten more examples of early Seventies' deep Southern soul, bearing the usual Muscle Shoals seal of quality. What else is there to say?

Well, there's a really good version of ʽIn The Ghettoʼ, perhaps the definitive cover version as performed by a black artist (no offense to Elvis, but the image of him performing the song in posh Las Vegas venues has seriously undermined my capacity of enjoying his version). With minimal string participation and mournful rather than angelic backing harmonies, it manages to inject a bit of grittiness into the tenderness, and there's a special poignancy in Candi's singing of the line "and his mama cries". There's even a rumor that Elvis himself sent her a congratulatory telegram, but the song is highly recommendable to all regardless of whether this is true or not.

Other than that, the album shares the same issue with its predecessor — it continues the plan to soften up and commercialize Candi's sound, concentrating more on sensual balladry than on her kick-ass, stand-for-your-rights side: the latter is only represented by ʽBlackmailʼ, which is more sorrowful and melancholic than fiery, and a couple songs about cheating and lying on the second side. The best of these is probably ʽThe Best Thing You Ever Hadʼ (no pun intended), just be­cause it is funkier and heavier than most of its surroundings, but not in any sort of unique man­ner or anything. The other grooves are all just about equally pleasant and equally interchangeable. Every once in a while a hook stands out sharper than the rest — for instance, the massive push on the chorus line of ʽDo It In The Name Of Loveʼ — but it would still be a matter of nuance.

Curious bit of trivia: the only two songs for which Candi herself shares songwriter's credits are two of the bitterest ones — ʽYou Don't Love Me No Moreʼ and ʽThe Thanks I Get For Loving Youʼ. You could probably suggest they reflect her own personal experience with Clarence Carter, but the irony is that ʽYou Don't Love Me No Moreʼ features Clarence himself as co-writer, so there's some kind of Fleetwood Mac-style shit for you there. (Then again, scratch that, because that's the one taken from the first album, so it must have been written even before Candi and Clarence became properly romantically engaged). Nevertheless, it is impossible to tell which songs are more credible and convincing — the ones where she swears that "I'll drop every­thing and come running" or the ones where she gets no thanks for that — and this kind of con­summate artistry makes the whole thing both befuddling and intriguing at the same time. If only the songs had a few more twists and turns to them — but even as they are, what's wrong with a little bit of raw love-and-hate material, set to generic, but well-performed R&B melodies? Count this as a no-thumbs-up recommendation.

Candi Staton: Stand By Your Man

CANDI STATON: STAND BY YOUR MAN (1971)

1) Stand By Your Man; 2) How Can I Put Out The Flame?; 3) I'm Just A Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin'); 4) Mr. And Mrs. Untrue; 5) Too Hurt To Cry; 6) He Called Me Baby; 7) Sweet Feeling; 8) To Hear You Say You're Mine; 9) What Would Become Of Me; 10) Freedom Is Just Beyond The Door.

You just gotta love the irony in a record that begins with "But if you love him, you'll forgive him... cause after all, he's just a man" — and then, less than half an hour later, still ends in "But oh, I'm leaving you for good, baby, and I'm never comin' back no more". What can be said? Guess that Tammy Wynette recipe just doesn't work that well, after all, with a fiery black lady from the same Deep South. Of course, Candi Staton still had her several seconds of fame with the cover of ʽStand By Your Manʼ and not with ʽFreedom Is Just Beyond The Doorʼ — but that just goes to show what sort of material was still seen as preferable to male record-buying audiences (black and white alike, I'm sure) in 1971, because in retrospect, ʽFreedomʼ is clearly the superior number here, with a stern bass groove and a defiant, in-yer-face vocal delivery that is not afraid to offend and disturb if it sees itself in the right.

On the whole, though, the album is a bit of a step down, and not just because they seem stumped for new material (there's this dirty trick of mixing two previously released songs with ten new ones, in the hope that nobody would notice), but precisely because, with the Wynette cover and a few other songs, the record dips a bit towards the sentimental side, downplaying the raw anger of the vast majority of the material on I'm Just A Prisoner. Most of the new songs are either simple love declarations, or broken-hearted confessions (ʽToo Hurt To Cryʼ, ʽMr. And Mrs. Untrueʼ); ʽFreedomʼ is the only red-hot statement of self-assertion, and it comes in just a little too late to dissipate the odd feeling that, perhaps, Stanton's spirit was broken and subdued to the standards of polite inoffensiveness.

Still, even so, there is no denying that the regular levels of songwriting, musicianship, and vocal aptitude have all been kept up — because of that, there is not one unpleasant second on the album, and even when she is calling upon ladies to "stand by your man, give him two arms to cling to", she manages to come across as totally believable; there's no attempt whatsoever to show irony or ambiguity (although she does amend the line "keep givin' all the love you can" to "he's giving you all the love you can", to make it seem less of a one-sided commitment), and she gets away with it by putting on that old gospel air and pretending that standing by your man is not that spiritually different from standing by your God. The problem is, with an approach like that, there are virtual­ly no standout tracks on the record — just one lazy, lush, longing R&B ballad after another — and, consequently, nothing much to write about, unless you'd want to expand the review to the size of a lengthy treatise on racial and gender issues just because, you know, it so happened that R&B covers of Nashville hits were financially profitable at the time.

Candi Staton: I'm Just A Prisoner

CANDI STATON: I'M JUST A PRISONER (1970)

1) Someone You Use; 2) I'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart; 3) You Don't Love Me No More; 4) Evidence; 5) Sweet Feeling; 6) Do Your Duty; 7) That's How Strong My Love Is; 8) I'm Just A Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin'); 9) Another Man's Woman, Another Woman's Man; 10) Get It When I Want It.

The «First Lady of Southern Soul» (for about a few days in the early 1970s) was first discovered by the notorious soulster Clarence Carter, for whom she was first his backing vocalist, and then his wife, for about three years. In personal terms, that was improvement over her first husband, who beat her up — the second one merely cheated, which meant that the marriage also did not last long. But at least in professional terms Carter did good for her: recognizing that she had what it takes to step out as a solo artist, he set her up as such, getting her to Fame Studios at Muscle Shoals and even writing some songs for her.

Although there is nothing particularly original or unusual about this debut record (not to mention how small it is — ten short songs that are over in a jiffy), Clarence's instincts did not fail him: I'm Just A Prisoner is required listening for any serious fan of old school soul music. The songs have mostly been written specially for the artist (Carter is joined by other established songwriters such as George Jackson and Ronnie Shannon, and Staton herself gets at least one co-credit); the arrangements, given that we find ourselves in Muscle Shoals, are sonically impeccable; the backing band is tough and knows how to set itself on fire at all the right moments. But most im­portantly, right from the get-go Ms. Staton establishes an awesome presence and keeps it up right until the end.

Her earliest experience was gospel singing, which explains why it looks like she's taking Aretha Franklin as her role model — the power, the passion, the self-assertion, the fight for your right. She cannot scale the same heights as Aretha, yet, on the other hand, there is a gritty "bad bitch" vibe to her singing that you cannot find in Aretha's singing, either, and the whole slant of the album is on aggressive resistance — just look at these song titles: there are, at best, one or two songs with sentimental values, and even these are delivered with a flaming sword (ʽSweet Feelingʼ is a song of rescue and loyalty rather than one of tender love). Much more often it's about infidelity and treachery, though: the very first song states that "I'm just someone you run to, I'm just someone you use", even if it is set to an R&B-pop hybrid melody that one usually asso­ciates with chivalrous serenades from the likes of Sam Cooke.

The best effect is reached, how­ever, when gritty words rub against gritty music — ʽEvidenceʼ sets up a cool mid-tempo funky groove as a foundation for two and a half minutes of fervent rants and verbal slapping in such a pissed-off way as you'd rarely, if ever, get a chance to hear on an Aretha album. Where Franklin fights for the right to earn "respect when I come home", Staton makes accusations instead of demands, with little in the way of reconciliation. It's a hot, infuria­ting, involving performance, and the only problem is that the song fades out just as it begins to hit its stride — which, by the way, is a common problem with most of the material on here (each of the songs could have benefited from a little extra jam power). The most extreme case is probably ʽI'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheartʼ, rolling on a bit faster and explaining how stability in life is more important than getting it on with young men who'd all rather "do the camel walk", so, Romeo, take a hike. In theory, this point is debatable on several levels, but Candi's delivery is so tense, fast, fluent, and powerful that you barely have the opportunity to retort — she emerges here as a true master of «artistic flooding».

Accordingly, there's this real powerful gospel take here on ʽThat's How Strong My Love Isʼ, for some reason featuring a completely new set of lyrics (compared to the classic Otis Redding ver­sion) and a completely new attitude — one of iron-willed loyalty rather than insane devotion, all the more ironic seeing as how the song is surrounded on all sides with tunes complaining about mistreatment and deception. But the irony does not really matter as long as everything is delive­red with credibility — and it is, enough for the lady to have placed three singles from here in the lower ranges of the US pop charts and in the higher ranges of the R&B ones. (The biggest R&B chart success was ʽSweet Feelingʼ, a song melodically reminiscent of Aretha's ʽI Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)ʼ, but more rhythmically conventional). Were this released on the Atlantic label, we'd probably be hearing much more about it than we usually do — but a techni­cal inconvenience like that should never stand in the way of a well-earned thumbs up.