FILTER ALBUMS
Some Candi talking
Southern soul’s first lady goes back to the church on exultant 32nd album.
By Lois Wilson.
Roots cause: Candi Staton is both spiritually and musically elevated on her latest.
Sean Cokes
Candi Staton
★★★★
Back To My Roots
BERACAH/NEW DAY DISTRIBUTION. CD/DL/LP
WHEN SHE LAST spoke to MOJO in 2018, Candi Staton (it’s pronounced Stay-ton) told us, “Singing makes me happy, it makes me whole.” She certainly is in fulsome form here, having come full circle – hence the album’s title – on a set of reinvigorating blues but mainly gospel songs she heard in childhood. Songs like Peace In The Valley and Lord Will Make A Way Somehow; songs she sang with her sister Maggie Staton Peebles in The Four Echoes and The Jewell Gospel Trio on the same circuit that gave rise to Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, and which made her, “who I am”. Sister Maggie is one of several guests on the album, and family is clearly important to Staton. Her son Marcus Williams produces and leads her band featuring her other son Marcel Williams on bass and daughter Cassandra Hightower on backing vocals. The brief: keep it loose, play what you feel.