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Candi Staton Profile |
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Birth Date: March 13, 1940
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Birth Place: Hanceville, Alabama, USA
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Birth Name: Canzate Maria Staton
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Height:
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Biography |
Canzetta Maria Staton was born in Hanceville, Alabama, on
March 13, 1940. She spent her early childhood on her
parents' farm and began singing in church. Candi joined a
girl's vocal group when she was 5, but relocated to
Cleveland when her parents divorced shortly thereafter.
In 1950, Staton and her sister Maggie arrived in Nashville
to attend the Jewel Christian Academy. They joined another
young vocalist named Naomi Harrison, and were christened The
Jewel Gospel Trio. The teenage vocal group became moderately
successful touring the gospel music circuit, and had singles
released on the local Nashboro label.
At the age of 17, Staton temporarily quit performing. She
was married in 1959 and had four children with her first
husband. Her rocky first marriage ended in 1966, around the
time she decided to give singing another shot. During one of
her club engagements she met the blind soul singer Clarence
Carter. The pair were soon husband and wife, and Carter
helped Staton land a recording deal with Fame records.
In 1969, Staton's solo debut single "I'd Rather Be An Old
Man's Sweetheart (Than A Young Man's Fool)" cracked the Top
10 on Billboard's R&B listing, and made the Top 50 on the
pop chart. Her first album, I'm Just a Prisoner, recorded at
the renowned Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, was issued at
the end of '69, and provided Staton with two more sizable
R&B hits.
More successful single releases followed during the early
'70s, including a soulful cover of country superstar Tammy
Wynette's "Stand By Your Man," which peaked at No. 4 on the
R&B charts and became Staton's first Top 30 pop hit. Through
the next few years she scored several more moderate hits on
the soul charts, including her version of "In The Ghetto"
(1972), which had previously been a hit for Elvis Presley.
In 1974, Candi Staton signed a deal with Warner Bros.
Records. The Candi album was issued that year and its first
single, "As Long As He Takes Care of Home," provided the
singer with her first Top 10 smash in nearly four years. Her
teaming with songwriter/producer Dave Crawford the following
year brought her music in another direction stylistically.
Disco was then all the rage and her soon-to-be dance classic
"Young Hearts Run Free" became her sole chart-topping single
on Billboard's R&B charts in June of 1976. The song became
an anthem of the era, peaking at No. 20 on the U.S. Pop
Charts and at No. 2 in the UK.
With her newfound success as a disco diva, Staton continued
to collaborate with Crawford on her next few albums. A cover
of the Bee Gees' "Nights On Broadway" gave her a Top 10
British hit as well as a Top 20 R&B hit stateside. The album
House of Love from 1978 included "Victim," (No. 17 on the
R&B Charts), while her 1979 effort, Chance, provided her
with the No. 13 R&B hit, "When You Wake Up Tomorrow."
"Looking For Love" from 1980's Candi Staton became her final
chart single for Warner Bros. Following the release of
Suspicious Minds on Sugarhill Records in 1982, it seemed as
though Staton's success as a popular music artist had
fizzled out.
After successfully kicking their respective substance abuse
habits, Staton and her fourth husband, John Sussewell,
reaffirmed their faith and became pastors in Atlanta. Staton
abandoned secular music to return to the gospel music of her
youth and, with Susswell, she created a gospel label called
Beracah (meaning "blessing" in Hebrew) in 1982. The album
Make Me An Instrument became the label's first release in
1983.
In 1986, Staton became the host of Say Yes!, a local cable
show that reached out to "at-risk" youth. That same year,
"You Got The Love," credited to The Source featuring Candi
Staton, gave the singer her first non-gospel chart hit in
five years, as it scraped into the U.S. R&B and UK Pop
Charts. A reissue of "Young Hearts Run Free" also cracked
the British charts that year.
Staton kept churning out gospel albums, such as Love Lifted
Me (1988), Stand Up And Be A Witness (1989) and Standing on
the Promises (1991), prior to the release of a remixed
version of "You Got The Love" with The Source -- the song
reached the British Top 5 in 1991. Her autobiography, This
Is My Story, was published in 1994, followed by the release
of more gospel sounds on It's Time (1995) and Cover Me
(1997).
There was a renewed interest in Staton's dance-oriented
music when Kym Mazelle's reworked version of the song "Young
Hearts Run Free" was included in the 1996 movie Romeo And
Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. A
1997 re-release of "You Got The Love" (Now Voyager Mix)
topped the British Dance Charts and reached No. 3. In 1999,
React Records released Outside In, Staton's first non-gospel
album in 17 years. Since that time, she has been performing
both gospel and secular songs in concert engagements.
Candi Staton issued two collections in 2000, Here's a
Blessing and Christmas In My Heart. In 2001 and 2002 she
released Glorify and Proverbs 31 Woman, respectively. The
New Voyager Mix of "You Got The Love" became a Top 10 hit in
Britain in 2005, which was prior to the 2006 release of the
the album His Hands. Candi's 2006 album includes rich covers
of country and R&B artists that range from Merle Haggard and
Charlie Rich to Bobby Bland and Solomon Burke.
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