Candi Staton on the KKK, Studio 54 & End Time: The Signs Are Everywhere
Author: Benedetta Skrufff
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
Growing up dirt poor in the cotton-picking country of rural Alabama in the 1950s, legendary disco/ soul singer Candi Staton not only had to work from the tender age of 8 but also had to watch out for the very real threat posed by the Ku Klux Klan, whose headquarters was close to her home.
"I'll never forget one occasion when I was eight and my mother took me to the city," she recalls.
"I could already read then and on the way there you had to cross a bridge which had writing on it, graffiti, saying 'Run, nigger run. If you can't read, run anyway'. After I read it I was puzzled and asked my mother what it meant, and she replied 'don't look at it, don't even worry about it'. That's how we lived back then, under that constant threat."
When her mother moved north to Cleveland when Candi was 10 (ironically to get away from her alcoholic husband rather than the Klan) she found her escape and destiny via singing, performing gospel alongside fellow upcoming singers including The Staple Singers, Sam Cooke and a young Aretha Franklin. Touring the States singing gospel she switched to rhythm & blues when still a teenager then disco in the 70s, never giving up singing however her life progressed.
And 43 years after she started her career, she's nowadays recognised as one of America's all time musical greats, her acid house anthem You Got The Love recently closing Sex In The City's final episode while her best known hit Young Hearts Run Free is rightly hailed as all time disco standard. That she dreamed up the song after one of her many abusive husbands held her over a skyscraper balcony threatening to drop her, speaks volumes for a singer who's truly translated her life struggles into soul.
"He had me hanging from my arms, the way you'd hold a baby, over the balcony," says Candi, recalling the horrific incident, which took place in a Vegas hotel.
"He was possessive and jealous, we'd been rowing and the argument escalated until he put his gun to my head, threatening to blow me away, then he decided to hang me from the balcony instead, saying that if I coughed he would drop me," she continues.
"I remember thinking of ways to get out of this predicament when I said to him 'You know, this is a mafia owned club and I'm here for them, if you drop me, you gotta' get outta' here or they will find you'. That's what made him come back to his senses. He then pulled me up back over the edge, in a big sweat.
I walked back into the living room and went to lie down on the bed with him still pointing the gun to my head. He lay down next to me and you know what- I went to sleep. You know, you can only take so much, all of a sudden your mind just shuts down and I was in a state of mind where I couldn't care less. That's the way that story ended."
Chatting down the line to Benedetta Skrufff this week, Candi's actually delightfully upbeat about the trials and tribulations that have relentlessly coloured her life admitting she's a firm believer in the 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger' school of thought.'She's also cheerfully honest about her lack of input in her new compilation CD 'Candi Staton' which features 26 blues based tracks she recorded with Fame Records in the 60s.
"Someone called me one day out of the blue saying that I had a new compilation out and that's how I found out about it," she laughs.
"As a matter of fact, I even wondered, why in the world EMI would want to dish all those old songs again, who'd want to b Tags