Soul Music legend Candi Staton, who turns 85 years old in March, returns to her down-home Alabama roots on her forthcoming 32nd album, Back to My Roots, (Beracah Records / New Day Distribution), which releases globally on February 14, 2025. The twelve-track set features an array of Staton-penned originals and some well-chosen covers.
First single “Love Breakthrough” is available today. Written by Staton, this stand-out track about divinely inspired peace and universal love showcases a Motown-styled flavour in the classic style of Diana Ross & The Supremes' biggest 1960s hits.
Staton will be in London in January 2025 when she will receive the Americana Music Association UK’s highest honour, the International Lifetime Achievement Award, at the UK Americana Music Awards ceremony at Hackney Church on Thursday 23. She will also attend the premiere of I’ll Take You There, a new film about the music and civil rights history of Alabama, in which she stars. This specially commissioned documentary will be screened at Hackney Picturehouse on Monday 20, preceded by a panel discussion featuring participating artists with Staton as special guest.
The Back to My Roots album opens with a mid-tempo Bonnie Raitt-styled blues “I Missed the Target” that finds Harry Connick Jr.’s longtime guitarist Jonathan DuBose Jr. showing off his skills that set the tone for the song and the album. Staton’s older sister, Maggie Staton Peebles (who alongside Staton was a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s), joins her for two duets. The first, “It’s Gonna Rain,” features just a drum, steel guitar and vocals. “My mother used to sing that song to us all the time when I was a child,” Staton recalls. “It’s a really soulful kind of song I wanted to revisit.” They then take turns leading Thomas Dorsey 1939 gem “Peace in the Valley” that Elvis Presley popularised in the 1950s.
“Hang on in There” is a new, mid-tempo song that has an old school gospel flavour and features vocals from veteran bluesman, Larry McCrary. While in Europe in 2023 for her farewell concert tour that took her to the Glastonbury Festival and Love Supreme, Staton and her British band, PUSH, went into a London studio to record a new version of The Rolling Stones’ 1972 gem, “Shine A Light.” “I love the way that came out,” Staton says. “We put a big choir on it and put our own twist on it.” From there, Staton revives another Thomas Dorsey classic, “Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” with a bluesy vibe. When Al Green started recording gospel in the early 1980s, he re-introduced this song into the culture.
“God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway” is a new mid-tempo blues with subtle Caribbean influences. The mood takes a turn on “1963.” It’s a poignant, spoken-word reflection on September 15, 1963, when four black girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing in Alabama. “I was in the city that day and I remember the chaos and horror after the bombing,” Staton recalls. “Just thinking of how racism and hatred caused those men to kill those girls was so emotional for me that I could only do it in one take.”
It's a perfect segue into "Reach Down and Touch Heaven," a haunting, plea for divine intervention into the affairs of mankind. "That's straight Baptist," she says. "I used to be a church pianist back in the 1960s. I've never played piano on one of my records before so that's a unique song for me because I’m finally playing on one of my records."
Staton says, “I grew up hearing a lot of these old gospel songs when they were new gospel songs. I toured with the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s and we got to know people like Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and others who first sang these songs. So, I’m sort of paying tribute to them and the influence they had on me by refreshing these songs and making new songs in the old style.”’
Staton offers love as an antidote to hate on the bouncy, Motown-styled, “Love Breakthrough.” A staffer brought Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY’s “My God Has a Telephone” to Staton’s attention. While the retro 1960s arrangement is similar to the original version, Staton brought in her longtime friend and STAX Records legend, William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” and “Trying to Love Two”), to add raspy seasoning to the track.
The album closes with the wistful, “In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled,” that was originally written and recorded by the late country star, Lari White, who died in 2017 at the age of 52. “Lari sent me that song to consider at least ten years ago and I always loved it,” Staton says. “The record label didn’t want it on the album or something, so I just held it.”
"These songs represent my roots," Staton adds as she reflects on her many trials and triumphs. "Even the new songs on some level represent something I've experienced and that's what real soul music is about."
Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her second eldest son, Marcus Williams, a professional drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson, Isaac Hayes, and Tyler Perry. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton’s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon’s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. “Some of the first songs I ever heard were songs like `Peace in the Valley’ and `It’s Gonna Rain,’” says Staton. “The new songs or cover songs are tracks that remind me of that era when I was growing up as a child and evolving as a young woman. That’s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I’m going back to the roots that made me who I am.”
Back to My Roots track listing:
I Missed the Target Again (Candi Staton)
It’s Gonna Rain (PD/ Candi Staton arranger)
Hang on in There (Candi Staton)
Shine A Light (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)
Lord Will Make a Way Somehow (Thomas Dorsey)
God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway (Candi Staton)
1963 (Candi Staton)
Reach Down and Touch Heaven for Me (Candi Staton)
Love Breakthrough (Candi Staton)
Shine A Light (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)
My God Has a Telephone (Aaron Frazer, Micah Blaichman, Wyndham Baird) Ft. William Bell
In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled (Lari White, Jimmy Stewart, Marion Cannon)
