Another rebirth, in the ’90s, saw her become a house music sensation in the U.K. Staton reinvented herself in the mid-’70s, becoming a disco star and an early ally of LGBTQ+ communities - and then reinvented herself again in the ’80s, this time as a Grammy-nominated gospel artist who doubled as the host of shows on Christian television. She played smoke-filled nightclubs, toured the unpredictable Chitlin’ Circuit, and recorded some of the most arresting soul music to come out of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, visceral songs about heartache, and the torture of doomed relationships: “Too Hurt to Cry,” “I’m Just a Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin’),” “I’d Rather Be An Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than A Young Man’s Fool),” “Mr. Toward the end of the ’60s - without the benefit of a modern DIY star-making vehicle like TikTok - Staton built a new musical career from scratch. But a thought nagged at her: What if she could somehow find her way back to performing? It was a practical, understandable choice. ![]() To support her children, Staton worked at a nursing home, while some of the musicians she’d traveled with as an adolescent found stardom. A jealous husband who beat her and wanted her nowhere near any stage, leaving her a single mother of four at age 24. There was a missed opportunity - an invitation, at 18, to move to California with her friends Cooke and Lou Rawls and pursue a recording contract. What she often found though, were obstacles - people and circumstances that threatened to silence her voice. Staton wanted only a chance to share that gift. Her voice could crackle with campfire warmth, or summon freight train strength she instinctively understood how to make a listener actually feel the joy or sorrow that a sheet of lyrics hinted at. As a small child, she’d discovered that when she sang, her sound was unlike anything the adults in her life had ever heard. The encounter, a microcosm of the bigotry and violence that Black Americans routinely faced, could have compelled Staton and her older sister, Maggie, to quit their group - The Jewell Gospel Trio - and return home. They kept shooting at the ground,” Staton says. “You gon’ dance tonight.” He aimed a gun at the men’s feet, and opened fire. “You gon’ dance tonight, n-,” Staton would remember the officer responding. One meekly protested that they only sang. The officer turned his attention to five men, who sat terrified in another car, and ordered them to get out. That song - ‘strange fruit, hanging from the poplar trees’ - came to mind whenever a police officer stopped you. “In those days,” she’d recall years later, “you didn’t know what to expect. Now Staton - who would befriend and tour with Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, and The Staple Singers - was in Mississippi, where 581 lynchings were reported between 18. We just stopped to take a nap.” Staton had experienced the terror of the Ku Klux Klan years earlier, back home in Alabama, where her mother used to tuck her under a bed when Klan members rumbled by in pickup trucks, armed with smoldering torches. “We’re singers,” said one member of the caravan. “What are you n-s doing here?” asked a white police officer. ![]() Flashlight beams invaded the cars, stirring awake the other occupants. Candi Staton heard doors clunk open, and several pairs of footsteps approach. Their peace was interrupted by the rumble of approaching engines. Instead, they shifted and turned in their seats, in search of a comfortable position and a few hours of sleep. ![]() Booking a hotel room wasn’t an option, not for this group of Black performers in the early ’50s. Night had fallen, and the caravan of gospel singers that she’d traveled with from Nashville had steered their sedans and station wagons to a quiet space under an oak tree in Mississippi. David Gambacorta | Longreads | July 2022 | 16 minutes (4,445 words)
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