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Off the record
Evening Standard 04.07.08
Comeback trial: Candi Staton has found a new generation of fans via the Honest Jon's label
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SOUL SISTER CELEBRATED
"I'm what you would call a well-rounded musician. I adapt to everything, and I love all kinds of music," says Candi Staton, the veteran-gospel and soul singer probably-best remembered for her disco hit, Young Hearts Run Free, and electronic dance single, You Got the Love, both of which remarkably have been UK hits on three separate occasions each.
She'll be in the right place tomorrow night then, when her London record label, Honest Jon's, gathers its biggest names together at the Barbican for a "chop up". That's a Nigerian expression for a jolly good knees-up.
Damon Albarn, who loved Honest Jon's Ladbroke Road record shop so much that he joined forces with its owner to set up the label of the same name, will be leading the festivities. He promises to revive tunes from his Mali Music, the first album released on Honest Jon's in 2002. The store, he said recently, played an important role in his musical getaway from Blur. "I was constantly finding new music in there. It was my escape, going into that shop," he said recently.
He'll be helped along at the Barbican by Malian giants Toumani Diabaté and Afel Bocoum, Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, New York jazz band Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and, perhaps most surprisingly, 65-year-old Staton.
The Alabaman singer is back in the limelight after being all but forgotten by the secular world for more than two decades, while she found God, sang gospel and hosted a Christian TV show, Say Yes!
Then, in 2003, Honest Jon's stepped in, offering to reissue the wonderful, mostly forgotten Southern soul music she had recorded in the late Sixties and early Seventies in the same Muscle Shoals studio used by Aretha Franklin and Etta James.
"The first thing I thought was, who wants to buy them old records?" she tells me.
Lots of people, it turned out. The self-titled Candi Staton album received ecstatic reviews for its funky take on classics such as Stand By Your Man and In the Ghetto, as well as anguished relationship songs such as I'm Just a Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin') and Mr and Mrs Untrue, sung in a cracked, heartbroken voice from first-hand experience.
Staton has been married four times, only really happily to her current man, John Sussewell. Her soul career began when she ran away from her first husband, a minister's son who would barely let her leave the house, to sing in a club at weekends and work in a nursing home in the week while her mother cared for her four children. The next husband introduced her to the hard drinking that she would continue until her conversion. The third was a gangster who once hung her out of a 23rd-floor hotel balcony.
"A lot of people say to me: 'When I hear you sing, I cry'. I say 'I know because I've cried too'. I've been in love with someone who was not in love with me, has run around, mistreated me and abused me. When I sing those songs the feelings come back. Even Young Hearts Run Free - what a sad song with such a happy beat."
Staton wants people to know her tale of survival. She is trying to find a publisher for both her autobiography and a book about unhealthy relationships she calls Hitch-hikers: Men Who Ride for Free. Her conversation is littered with self-help speak.
"I now have a deeper knowledge of life, I know where I'm going, I'm not distracted and I lift myself up. If no one is there to cheer me on, my cheering section is on the inside."
More importantly, her current success has revitalised her singing voice and given her a new generation of fans. In 2006, an Honest Jon's album of new soul material, His Hands, saw her being helped along by altcountry bigwigs Mark Nevers of Lambchop and Will Oldham. They are now working on an autumn follow-up.
She promises a public airing of a new song tomorrow night. Enjoying another creative peak after a lifetime of troubles, Staton's appearance will be a fine opportunity to pay tribute to one of soul's great survivors.
An Honest Jon's Chop Up!, Barbican, Sat (020 7638 4141, www.barbican.org.uk).
NEW ON THE NET
For most hip hop stars, trainers are for wearing once and binning, so it's admirable to see Kanye West's DJ entering a world in which people actually get their feet dirty. This week Montreal turntablist Alain Macklovitch, aka A-Trak, teamed up with Nike and iTunes to release Running Man, a 42-minute download mix designed for joggers.
I'm not normally a fan of running wearing headphones, as they greatly increase my chances of being run over or savaged by dogs, but A-Trak definitely pushed me to new heights on a dash through Epping Forest, as a muscle strain today proves.
There's a touch of rapping on his mix, though it's mainly instrumental dance and electro, which sits well with past Nike releases by the likes of LCD Soundsystem and The Crystal Method. The robotic beats make you feel more machine than man, and there are also a few dreamy synth bits neatly timed to remind you to slow down occasionally.
For a man who admits to not being a runner himself, A-Trak has shown a fine understanding of the combination of pace and inspiration that they need. That worn out copy of Eye of the Tiger can finally be filed away.
