Legend is a much overused term to describe performers but not in the case of the queen of Southern Soul, Candi Staton. From her teenage years touring the gospel circuit, through the Muscle Shoals and disco era of the 1970s to her recent albums produced by former Lambchop member Mark Nevers, her voice has seen her gain awards and fans the world over. Ahead of her appearance at this Summer’s Love Supreme Festival we spoke to her about her incredible career, anthemic songs and her fight for survival both personally and professionally.
We were due to meet a couple of weeks ago but you were taken to hospital. How are you now?
I’m much better. It wasn’t COVID, I just didn’t feel well. I think there’s something in the atmosphere, I don’t know what it is. You can’t go anywhere, you have to wear a mask, you can’t be around your family. Everyone in my family has had COVID but because they’re all vaccinated, it wasn’t bad. I have children, grand-children, great grand-children and I just miss them. I had a stomach problem and food poisoning after going out to dinner on New Year’s Eve with my children. It took me two weeks to get better.
How has the COVID pandemic affected you?
It hasn’t been good. I want that thing to go away and never come back again! It stopped me from doing festivals last year plus I had breast cancer two years ago. I got over that, my scans were clean and I was a survivor. During that time I wrote a lot of songs and as soon as I got ready to go back to work, I thought oh my goodness, I’m done, then COVID hit so that was another year that I couldn’t get out or do anything. It was frustrating so I started writing books and I’ve just signed with a publisher. It’s an inspirational Christian book about some of the experiences I had when I was on a sabbatical for 25 years so you didn’t see me, I wasn’t going out, I was totally in the church. There’s a book coming out in a couple of months called Beyond A Shadow Of Doubt – Miracle Short Stories by Candi Staton. Things just happened, God is real and so good so I gave all my energy to heavenly things and he showed up every time.
How have you been looking after your voice over the past two years?
I got a piano at home and I sing every day. I sit down and play and sing and write songs and do my vocal exercises to try to keep my vocals strong and healthy. I did two shows last year in Alabama, one was a festival and it was wonderful, I just felt so good, so at home and so loved and it felt great to be on stage again.
Your last album was Unstoppable and on the opening track Confident is very positive, full of self-belief and in it you say that you are unstoppable, which seems to be the case. Do you really feel unstoppable?
I do feel unstoppable. I think we all have our own space and time. I look to Betty White. If she can live to be almost 100, never stopping working, what a great role model.
Going back to the album, there’s quite a political edge to it and it was released just before the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. Did you set out to make a protest album?
I like to do current things that are happening now, that everyone is going through. People are going through this period in their lives and so am I, so I wanted to write something and do something that had that feel for now that they could relate to and I can relate to. I have to write songs that I believe. If I don’t feel it I don’t want to sing it. Some of the songs are political, some are nice. On Confident, I wanted to build people up and push forward. I’ve always had that tenacity. No matter what comes upon me I’m not stopping, I’m not quitting, I’m going forward and eventually I forget what I’m troubled with and I feel better for it.
Unstoppable has your sons Marcus and Marcel on drums and bass and His Hands featured daughter Cassandra. Do you try to make your music a family affair?
No, they’re just talented.That’s just what they do. Marcus is a super drummer, he’s played with The Pointer Sisters, Isaac Hayes, Peabo Bryson – you name it he’s played with them. He’s playing with Little Anthony right now. Marcel has been playing bass all of his life. He’s a very funky bass player and I have to tone him down sometimes if he gets too funky. I have to tell him to play it straight, don’t put nothing in that don’t belong there. So we all work together very well. I’ve been trying to get Cassandra to record lead vocals, put something down on a nice song, but she’s shy and wants to stay in the background. She’s got talent though.
Can you tell me about the Jewell Gospel Trio? You were so young when you were in that group.
I still listen to those recordings and my voice was so mature. I was 12 years old and I sound like a grown up. I remember doing those songs and coming on to sing Jesus Is Listening, which used to be one of our big hits. We used to do that and we used to tear up the churches and auditoriums, where they couldn’t stop standing and screaming and we were the only group that had a full band. Back then they only had a keyboard player or a guitar player.
I remember Mahalia Jackson one time at the Grand Ole Opry and I wanted to meet her so badly. I was peeking through a keyhole to her dressing room and her keyboard player came out and said do you want to meet her so I went in and Mahalia said “You’re one of those little singing girls” so I said “yes Ma’am, I’m with the Jewell Trio”. She said Goodness you girls are so talented, come here and give me a hug, so I did. She said I’m gonna watch y’all. All that music you got? I’m gonna get me some of that! Actually we don’t get credit for it but we started bands in gospel music because nobody could follow us. The promoters started putting us on last because if we sang before anyone else with that full band by the time we’d finished with that audience they didn’t have any energy left so we had to be the closing act. And we couldn’t travel with any female artists because they would just get angry. Like The Davis Sisters quit on us. We were doing a tour of California and we did so well, they had to pack up and go home and were replaced by The Fairfield Four and because they were men they didn’t care. Sam Cooke was the only singer we couldn’t run off stage because he was such a star.
And it was through this group that you first met Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples?
I met Aretha with her father, Reverend CL Franklin. She would sing before the preacher’s sermon, playing piano and she would sing Amazing Grace. She was very personable but shy and she didn’t say much. Mavis and I were real close. We ran together. With my sister Maggie and I, we were the Three Musketeers. We’d get up to all kinds of devilment and if Pervis (Mavis’s brother) caught us smoking he’d say he’d tell Pops and Mavis would plead with him not to. We were like one big family.
Have you ever recorded with Mavis?
No. I asked her to do a song with me but she had just released a new album and her management said no. It would have been wonderful to record with her.
You will always be associated with Muscle Shoals. How did you come to work with Rick Hall?
It was through Clarence Carter. I opened for him in a little club in Birmingham, Alabama and I was going through a very hard time in my life. I had four children and a very abusive husband, so I was trying to find a way to get out of there. I had a nervous breakdown when I was with him and I knew he was going to shorten my life, one way or another. My brother Sam persuaded the owner of the 2728 club to give me a shot. I didn’t rehearse with the band but they knew the songs. I did Etta James’ Tell Mama and Do Right Woman. I just got up, told them the key, they started playing and I sang. Afterwards they started clapping and shouting for more so they hired me. When Clarence Carter came to town the club owner asked if I could open for him but he said he was already set and “didn’t need no little girl coming in”. But he said “I insist ‘cause you gonna love her” and at the rehearsal I said to Clarence “I hope you know these songs cos they’re the only ones I know” and he said I think I can ‘cause I wrote Tell Mama. I told him about my home situation and he said “we gonna get you away from that fool” and that was my way out.
I moved in with my sister in Nashville and I saw this billboard saying Clarence Carter was coming to town with BB King, Albert King and The Chi-Lites so we got tickets right away, went backstage and he hired me. He said he wanted to introduce me to his producer, who’d just worked with Etta James. The following Monday, my sister, her husband and me drove to Muscle Shoals. I auditioned for Rick Hall, George Jackson was there, and I did three songs with the Fame Gang including I’d Rather Be An Old Man’s Sweetheart and Never In Public and Rick signed me to Fame.
And you got to work with Rick again just before he died.
Yeah, we did four songs on Life Happens (2014) and one which was unreleased that we’re hoping to put out.
Are you working on a new album?
I’m working on an album to try to get a Grammy. I’m recording an album of old songs that people don’t sing anymore, and some I’ve written that have that old sound, to get in the Roots section ‘cause I can’t compete with Beyonce and those girls (in the RnB category), shaking it and all that stuff. I’ve been nominated four times and I want to win one. I’d like to win me one!
Your first secular recording Now You’ve Got The Upper Hand has become a Northern Soul classic in the UK. Was this a one off session?
I made that record when I was still with my first husband. One of the local DJs introduced me to the label owner and we went into the studio and recorded it. I didn’t think much about it, I was literally a gospel singer and had just left the Jewell Trio. It was more like a Motown sound and I was listening to more secular music so it was kinda easy to do. They just gave me the words and the musicians were there and we put the song down. We did three songs that day but I forget the others.
The B side was You Can’t Stop Me
Oh yeah. Sings You Can’t Stop Me, oh no no.
You know what makes me mad? They gave me boxes of those white labels and I thought because it wasn’t a hit I threw them in the garbage, not knowing they’d be worth anything. After I divorced my husband I was trying to get as much out of the house as I could. The same with Elvis’s autograph. You know you divorce and you try to find what’s important and Elvis was still alive then and I thought I’ll see him again. But with The Upper Hand, I didn’t think much of it, it got a few plays on the radio in Alabama then died out because there wasn’t much promotion. I had signed a contract with them and it was valid then when Clarence Carter introduced me to Rick Hall, I signed another contract. And then I got scared about how to tell Clarence?. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity (with Fame) because Rick can do what Unity can’t do being a tiny label. So to get out of the contract I told him and said I’m not going to sing again – I lied. I asked for my contract back and he said no, I’ll give it back to you when it runs out. Old Man’s Sweetheart was about to come out so I told Clarence that he was going to sue us. Clarence thought and said call him back and ask him how much will he sell it to you for? So I called him in my most pitiful voice asking how much and saying you know I don’t have no money. His price was $1500 which Clarence gave to me. He said to get a cashier’s cheque made out to the guy, which I did and met him in a little restaurant in Birmingham. I can still picture us sitting across the table from each other. I gave him the cheque, he gave me the contract, we finished our lunch and talked a bit about the recording session and he had no idea that I’d signed another contract and was about to have a number one record. After that I listened a lot to other musicians and learned a lot about the music business from them. When I was at Capitol Records I asked how the royalty payments worked and was told not to worry about it. You just look pretty and we’ll take care of the business. Little did I know I was being ripped off every day.
On that theme, is it true that on You Got The Love, the company didn’t have enough to pay you so they gave you half the publishing rights?
Yeah, but I have been so ripped off on that record. We did the recording in 1986 and I didn’t even know it had come out. It wasn’t even supposed to be a record, it was a video for the late, great (comedian and activist) Dick Gregory to promote the Bahamian Diet. I met him at a conference in Nassau and he said he had a song he wanted me to do for a video I’m making. So I got a call from John Bellamy who’d written the song and we recorded it in Chicago. Bellamy said they couldn’t pay my fee so he gave me half the publishing, not thinking that the song would do anything. Then I signed a contract with The Source and released it in America but it didn’t work so it lay dormant. 10 years later Bellamy took the music off and left the vocal on and he gave it to Frankie Knuckles to play it over some music he was playing. John Truelove heard it and got 500 copies made and sold them at an enormous price in a few days. He put it out and it went up the charts in the UK and Europe but I didn’t know about it because he didn’t tell me anything about it, even though I owned half of it. The story of this song could be a movie. They’d made so much money off this song before I was aware of it, then I found out they’d sold my half of the publishing to John Truelove, which only left me 5%. We had to fight and fight and fight to try to get my publishing back. We got a bit of it back but they weren’t happy. I said why didn’t they give their portion to him, they even signed my name to it. We got some of it back but in America, after 35 years, the song reverts to the original author so we won’t get anything. So I’m not happy with it.
I love the song, it tells a story and it builds you up. When I had breast cancer, I hadn’t paid much attention to it but I would sing that song to myself on my way to chemotherapy. I’m all clear now and had a scan last October and everything’s fine. That song has become so personal to me and sometimes when I sing it I almost have tears because I know God had the love to see me through it.
When you play the Love Supreme Festival this year will you be playing with the same band?
Yes I’ve been performing with Ernie Mckone’s Push for over 13 years, they’re like family. The band are so good, Mick Talbot and Ernie plus my son Marcus is coming to play drums too.
Has anyone ever approached you to make a movie of your life?
No but I’d love to while I’m still here so they get it right.
What are your plans for the year ahead?
We’re doing a couple of festivals but I’m close to retiring. I’m doing two shows in June and two in August this year. I’m getting too old for all the travel and soundchecks and hotel rooms where there’s no lift. Maybe in 2023 I’ll do a farewell tour but anything can change.
Candi Staton will be performing at Love Supreme Festival on Saturday 2nd July 2022
