Shanachie Releases Candi Staton Gospel Hits Collection

Music legend Candi Staton crowns her twenty-plus year gospel career with the release of a comprehensive two-CD collection which presents all of her gospel hits as well as her interpretations of such inspirational songs as like “A Bridge Over Troubled Water,” plus four brand new recordings and a bonus inclusion of her very first recording with the gospel group The Jewel’s. The Ultimate Gospel Collection, a deluxe digi-pak release which includes an extensive booklet telling the story of Candi’s gospel career and vintage photos, will be released by Shanachie Entertainment on August 22, 2006.

Among the special guests featured on the collection are such gospel stars as Dottie Peoples, The Richard Smallwood Singers, The Mighty Clouds Of Joy and more. The CD follows hot on the heels of the release of her acclaimed His Hands, which is her first secular recording since 1983. Taken together, these two new projects reveal a multifaceted artist who has blazed new trails as she followed her inspiration across genres and categories, one of those increasingly rare singers who is blessed with a truly unique voice.

The Ultimate Gospel Collection highlights Candi Staton’s range by devoting one CD to “traditional hits” and the other to “contemporary hits—a praise party.” Even the “traditional” CD does not confine itself to a straight gospel formula. The opening track, “When There’s Nothing Left But God” uses gut-bucket blues as its musical template even as it delivers a spiritual message. “Shut Up And Stop Praying,” which features Dottie Peoples, addresses church-goers’ hypocrisy while “Mama,” one of Candi’s most popular songs, is a heartfelt tribute to her mother who died before Candi made the switch from secular to gospel, something that would have pleased her devout mother. Interestingly, “Mama” was well-received by country music fans, highlighting Candi’s ability to appeal across racial or sectarian lines. Her 1983 hit “Sin Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” found favor in charismatic and evangelical circles while “To Glorify Your Name” was popular with white church-goers. “I Will Praise” is a Yiddish-inflected dance tune inspired by Candi’s visits to worship at synagogues.

The “contemporary/praise party” disc highlights Candi’s dance-oriented gospel recordings and other contemporary styles she helped pioneer. “Dance Dance Dance,” a fan favorite and frequent concert closer from 1994, illustrates the style she dubbed “gospco”, a fusion of gospel and disco. But truth be told, Candi had been putting funk bass lines in her music since the early Eighties, much to the dismay of traditional gospel audiences.

Those songs seem tame now but at the time they were scandalous just because of the instruments we used and urban styling of the songs. There was no Kirk Franklin and Be Be & CeCe Winans at that time, so I really helped blaze that trail for contemporary music in the black church.”

Another notable track on the “contemporary” CD is the original 1986 version of “You Got The Love,” a song that has been a UK chart hit no less than three times in various re-mixed versions. One version was featured in the final episode of Sex In The City. The original version is included here for the first time on CD. Other highlights include the contemporary jazz-flavored “When I See The Blood” which equates the shielding blood of Jewish Passover with the redemptive blood of the Crucifixion, as well as three brand new tracks, including a new dance-oriented mix of her 2002 gospel radio hit “Hallelujah Anyway.”

Candi Staton was born in 1940s Hanceville, Alabama and was church-bred. She was featured singing in church at age five, then sang with her sister, Maggie, in the Four Echoes, a local gospel group. At thirteen she made her recording debut with the Jewel Gospel Trio, which appeared on bills with such stars as Mahalia Jackson, The Staples Singers, Sam Cooke & The Soul Stirrers and more. She married young and spent most of the 1960s as a disgruntled housewife with four children and sometime church organist, until she left her abusive husband. Her break came when R & B hit-maker and future husband Clarence Carter took her on the road as his opening act and got her a deal with Rick Hall’s Muscle Shoals label Fame Records. Beginning in 1969 she enjoyed a string of Top Ten R & B hits including “I’d Rather Be An Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than A Young One’s Fool)”, the Grammy-nominated “Stand By Your Man” and “In The Ghetto, and “Sweet Feeling.” Joining Warner Brothers Records, she successfully made the transition into the disco era with such soulful club hits as “Young Hearts Run Free” (a #1 R & B hit and worldwide dance anthem), “Victim” and “When You Wake Up Tomorrow.”

By the Eighties her string of hits were coming to an end and her life was in a tailspin. She had experienced failed marriages, a bogus marriage to a drug-pushing pimp, and the same alcoholism that led to her father’s death. And she was aware of the needs of her children who were now teenagers. She quit booze cold-turkey and began attending church with her estranged first husband, John Sussewell. She then launched her gospel career in l982, and along with Sussewell, she founded her own label Becarah Records (Hebrew for “Blessing”) when they committed themselves to a Christian life and left the secular music world. Often plagued by poor distribution and inconsistent radio play from traditional gospel radio stations resistant to some of Candi’s more adventurous musical directions, her records didn’t always sell as well as they should have. But the spotty radio play was counterbalanced by the exposure of her TBN television show (which ran from 1986-2005) and her exposure outside normal gospel circles. Dance re-mixes of her gospel hits kept her in the public eye around the world. Ultimate Gospel Collection is the definitive portrait of Candi Staton as a multi-faceted, pioneering and significant gospel artist who is just now getting her due.

“When I think of Candi, I am grateful for the way her ministry has created a black presence in CCM,” says respected gospel artist Richard Smallwood. “Honestly there are many African-American artists who have not been accepted in that genre. But Candi, without sacrificing her style or what God has called her to do, was able to do what few have. I think her also being the only African-American gospel artist (aside from Bobby Jones) that had her own national TV show was phenomenal. So I look at Candi as a pioneer in that she was blessed to make great strides in those areas. She’s paved the way for others. I know for a fact that her sweet spirit, humbleness and love for Christ has had so much to do with the doors that she’s been able to open.”