Brilliant overview of a phenomenal soul singer, Richard. Your respect, love, and appreciation for her shine through. I thoroughly enjoyed taking my time reading this essay with my morning coffee. I didn't know about that Ace comp, but I am not surprised to see Dean Rudland was involved.
I'm sure you know these Millie Jackson albums, but they are worth mentioning as I find similarities between Candi and Millie's heartachingly beautiful 'It Hurts So Good' & 'Caught Up' LPs. If you haven't heard either, they come with my highest recommendation.
Thanks for your kind words, Michael. Yes to Millie Jackson! I haven't played her songs in too long, so that's something to sort out. While writing the Candi Staton piece, I also found myself thinking about Ann Peebles a lot, who also used to be an in-car staple thanks to a brilliant comp a friend made for me. That was in the cassette days and I realise I need to sort myself out with some Peebles on CD and/or vinyl.
That is powerful; thank you for sharing. The thing that strikes me about "Evidence" is how alone she sounds (even with the back-up singers). She is angry but mostly she's exhausted and not ready to deal with what comes next.
I was amused to see you mention "Good Year For The Roses" because I had thought of it as soon as you mentioned the lipstick.
There's a song which I think of as the man's (inadequate) response in this situation -- "Don't Change Horses (In The Middle Of The Stream)" in which he says that yes, things might seem tough right now, but isn't that exactly the wrong time to be making a big decision. I like the song, and I think it exposes the self-centeredness of the man who is genuinely scared that she'll leave, and wants her to stay, but can't really offer to help carry the weight. He's just hoping that she'll decide to keep carrying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAIFl_ezic
Thanks Nick. Interesting what you say about Candi sounding alone here. I tend to hear her as an individual fighting her own battle but being egged on by her collaborators in the band, including the backing singers.
As for the Tower of Power track, that's a nice one to put in conversation with 'Evidence' and the other lovin' and cheatin's songs in Candi Staton's repertoire. I like that idea of response songs, as played out in southern soul, country, funk, r&b etc. That said, because I usually listen to *Evidence* (the compilation) as a whole, I generally hear the responses, or the other sides of the stories, coming from within the world of Staton's own repertoire. She has plenty of songs where she's the one the evidence is going to catch out, or where she knows she's fooling around, but also ones where the work of staying in a relationship that ToP are talking about also gets favoured. It was interesting for me to think, while writing this piece, how often I listen to her work as a self-contained world, because here I had to think about the songs as singles being distributed in a world of other singles, if that makes sense.
It also occurs to me that your comment about Candi Staton makes me think of this note about Aimee Mann (and about the gendered stereotypes in pop music).
--------quote--------
Spin magazine rightly noted that the album's "gorgeous guitar pop unsullied by trends or technologies acts as a shimmering backdrop for Mann's tirades against the losers she lets into her life" and lovingly called her "melodically a sorceress, lyrically an emotional train wreck."
Mann though often disagrees with analyses of her songs saying she's always been a bit misunderstood. "I find the concept of pinning anyone down aggravating. I don't want to be perceived as this languishing girl crying a song whenever her boyfriend leaves. I get a whiff of that and I run screaming. It's untrue and it's unflattering. I write about relationships but sometimes a song is ironic or from another perspective. Sometimes it's from the guy's point of view. 'You cheatin' scum' has been me. But a relationship refers to two or more things interacting. Boy-girl is more narrow than my scope. For example, it could also be betwen parent and child."
Good quote from a great songwriter. And, yes, there has to be space for ambiguous or multi-purpose narratives. That space needs to be there for songwriters to practice their art without always being pinned down to 'who it's about' etc. And it needs to be there for listeners to identify themselves and their experiences too.
Thanks; that does make sense and expands on the post in a helpful way. I haven't listened to much of her music, and appreciated you sharing -- it is absolutely the case that the associations I make, to both the music and your post about it, are going to be different, and coming from the outside, compared to your sense of the whole world of her music.
Perhaps "alone" isn't the best word to use. Maybe I should just say that she sounds more weary than angry, and that the backup singers support her perspective but still can't carry much of the weight.
I think part of what I find so fascinating about the ToP song is that it is balanced between being sympathetic and being completely shameless. I'm not sure what their intention with the song was, but for me as a listener it's charming (and sounds great), but the message is fairly selfish.
Brilliant overview of a phenomenal soul singer, Richard. Your respect, love, and appreciation for her shine through. I thoroughly enjoyed taking my time reading this essay with my morning coffee. I didn't know about that Ace comp, but I am not surprised to see Dean Rudland was involved.
I'm sure you know these Millie Jackson albums, but they are worth mentioning as I find similarities between Candi and Millie's heartachingly beautiful 'It Hurts So Good' & 'Caught Up' LPs. If you haven't heard either, they come with my highest recommendation.
Thanks for your kind words, Michael. Yes to Millie Jackson! I haven't played her songs in too long, so that's something to sort out. While writing the Candi Staton piece, I also found myself thinking about Ann Peebles a lot, who also used to be an in-car staple thanks to a brilliant comp a friend made for me. That was in the cassette days and I realise I need to sort myself out with some Peebles on CD and/or vinyl.
That is powerful; thank you for sharing. The thing that strikes me about "Evidence" is how alone she sounds (even with the back-up singers). She is angry but mostly she's exhausted and not ready to deal with what comes next.
I was amused to see you mention "Good Year For The Roses" because I had thought of it as soon as you mentioned the lipstick.
There's a song which I think of as the man's (inadequate) response in this situation -- "Don't Change Horses (In The Middle Of The Stream)" in which he says that yes, things might seem tough right now, but isn't that exactly the wrong time to be making a big decision. I like the song, and I think it exposes the self-centeredness of the man who is genuinely scared that she'll leave, and wants her to stay, but can't really offer to help carry the weight. He's just hoping that she'll decide to keep carrying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAIFl_ezic
"Hey, I know that enough is enough
But you shouldn't be talking 'bout givin' it up
Turn it loose, it might be right it seems
The wrong decision will spoil all our dreams
If you don't want to spoil our secret dreams
Don't change horses in the middle of a stream"
Thanks Nick. Interesting what you say about Candi sounding alone here. I tend to hear her as an individual fighting her own battle but being egged on by her collaborators in the band, including the backing singers.
As for the Tower of Power track, that's a nice one to put in conversation with 'Evidence' and the other lovin' and cheatin's songs in Candi Staton's repertoire. I like that idea of response songs, as played out in southern soul, country, funk, r&b etc. That said, because I usually listen to *Evidence* (the compilation) as a whole, I generally hear the responses, or the other sides of the stories, coming from within the world of Staton's own repertoire. She has plenty of songs where she's the one the evidence is going to catch out, or where she knows she's fooling around, but also ones where the work of staying in a relationship that ToP are talking about also gets favoured. It was interesting for me to think, while writing this piece, how often I listen to her work as a self-contained world, because here I had to think about the songs as singles being distributed in a world of other singles, if that makes sense.
It also occurs to me that your comment about Candi Staton makes me think of this note about Aimee Mann (and about the gendered stereotypes in pop music).
--------quote--------
Spin magazine rightly noted that the album's "gorgeous guitar pop unsullied by trends or technologies acts as a shimmering backdrop for Mann's tirades against the losers she lets into her life" and lovingly called her "melodically a sorceress, lyrically an emotional train wreck."
Mann though often disagrees with analyses of her songs saying she's always been a bit misunderstood. "I find the concept of pinning anyone down aggravating. I don't want to be perceived as this languishing girl crying a song whenever her boyfriend leaves. I get a whiff of that and I run screaming. It's untrue and it's unflattering. I write about relationships but sometimes a song is ironic or from another perspective. Sometimes it's from the guy's point of view. 'You cheatin' scum' has been me. But a relationship refers to two or more things interacting. Boy-girl is more narrow than my scope. For example, it could also be betwen parent and child."
Good quote from a great songwriter. And, yes, there has to be space for ambiguous or multi-purpose narratives. That space needs to be there for songwriters to practice their art without always being pinned down to 'who it's about' etc. And it needs to be there for listeners to identify themselves and their experiences too.
Thanks; that does make sense and expands on the post in a helpful way. I haven't listened to much of her music, and appreciated you sharing -- it is absolutely the case that the associations I make, to both the music and your post about it, are going to be different, and coming from the outside, compared to your sense of the whole world of her music.
Perhaps "alone" isn't the best word to use. Maybe I should just say that she sounds more weary than angry, and that the backup singers support her perspective but still can't carry much of the weight.
I think part of what I find so fascinating about the ToP song is that it is balanced between being sympathetic and being completely shameless. I'm not sure what their intention with the song was, but for me as a listener it's charming (and sounds great), but the message is fairly selfish.