Soul-searching leads Candi Staton back to gospel

Almost 60 years on, Candi Staton still recalls clearly the moment when an angry divide between religious and secular music came into shocking focus for her.

“I was about 12 and I was at a concert when Rosetta Tharpe came on,” Staton says. “She was a top gospel artist in America. She went over to Europe and they really accepted her. But then she came back, and the news came before she arrived that she had ‘backslidden’ – that means going back from the gospel – and I was there when they booed her off stage and threw things at her. It was terrible. It scared me no end.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – who would later, incongruously, perform a concert for Granada TV on a rainy disused railway station platform in Chorlton-cum-Hardy – was not the only gospel singer who risked religious ire by recording secular songs. Sam Cooke was another gospel singer whose first forays into pop had to be recorded under a pseudonym for fear of the wrath of God-fearing fans.

So pop music really was dangerous stuff in the USA of the 1950s?

“It was serious,” Staton agrees. “They would not receive you again if you crossed over and sung anything other than Amazing Grace or other gospel songs. It had to be all or nothing.”

Today, on her fifth marriage, her problems with drugs and alcohol now 30 years behind her, and after a lot of soul-searching, Staton is much happier with her God and Christianity in general. She will perform her southern soul at the Manchester International Festival’s Pavilion Theatre, but will also sing her gospel music at Manchester’s New Testament Church of God - part of  MIF’s  Sacred Sites, which also includes, at other venues, songs and recitals from Sikh, Jewish, Hindu and Islamic performers.

“That’s great,” Staton says of this multi-faith concept. “I wish them well. I bless them and keep on going.”

Such inter-religious understanding was in short supply during Staton’s childhood. Born in Alabama, in 1940, she was sent to a religious academy from which she was picked at the age of 12 to sing in a gospel trio.

“We were the only gospel group out there with a band.

“And some people were so religious they would not even allow the band to come into the churches. Bass, drums, piano ... all that was ‘the devil’s music’.

“It was fun at first, but when I got to be 16 or 17, I realised we were being taken advantage of. They were making money off us we never saw.

A Big ol' Bunch of Southern Soul | Option Magazine | Music + ...

(All Concord/Stax reissues)

When former gospel DJ-turned-promotion wizard Al Bell joined Stax Records in 1965, he quickly became a key figure and principal participant in the label’s evolution. Besides doubling as a songwriter and producer, Bell soon became the company’s executive vice president. He began cutting some of the Memphis-based label’s records in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section had developed a funkier and grittier, country-tinged Southern soul. Bell guided Stax through its transitional period of the late ’60s and early ’70s, when the label severed ties with Atlantic Records and lost its leading light, Otis Redding, in a tragic plane crash.

Though hardly the first Stax releases by the Staple Singers, Johnnie Taylor and Booker T. & the MG’s, these three reissues represent part of the new wave Bell had brought to the company by the early ’70s, and they are among the label’s premier efforts from its final years. Each album has been expertly remastered and expanded with bonus or unreleased cuts. The discs also feature updated, comprehensive liner notes and discographical info that puts into perspective their impact on the soul and pop scenes of the time.

For the Staple Singers’  Bealtitude: Respect Yourself , Bell took over production of the family gospel group’s music, breaking the singers into the pop market. Using the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, Bell integrated and incorporated reggae and rock influences into the Staples’ sound, especially on the massive hit “I’ll Take You There,” which includes one of the most recognizable bass lines in Southern soul, courtesy of Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood. Lyrically, the Staple Singers shifted gears from the introspective/philosophical tenor of their folky-soul material to harder-hitting, emphatic message songs like “Respect Yourself,” “We the People,” and “This World.”  A key personnel shift moved Yvonne Staples into the group as a replacement for Pervis. But the main focus stayed on Mavis’ earthy, surging contralto on top, and Pops’ bluesy wails, guitar fills and earnest, weary refrains on the bottom end. The group still infused some tunes with a gospel sensibility (“Who Do You Think You Are [Jesus Christ the Superstar]“), but now operated in a more radio-friendly, secular musical terrain. Extra tracks include an alternate version of “Heavy Makes You Happy,” whose arrangement is a bit inferior to the one that powered the hit, and the decent, but hardly classic “Walking In Water Over Your Head.