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.
"it's largely about killer performance"
ReplyDeleteEver heard Beck and co performing Superstition? Then it's not hard to understand why that version didn't become a hit. Who would have thought - Stevie Wonder kicks ass where Jeff Beck doesn't manage to.