Introduction

NIGHTLITES (1982)
1) Love And Be Free; 2) Suspicious Minds; 3) In The Still Of The Night; 4) The Sunshine Of Your Love; 5) Hurry Sundown; 6) Tender Hooks; 7) Count On Me.
I am unaware of the details, but seeing the name of Dave Crawford, once again, as producer and occasional songwriter for this record, obviously suggests that he may have been brought back in one last, desperate attempt to revive Staton's career — maybe bless her with another ʽYoung Hearts Run Freeʼ or something like that. Unfortunately, it was too late, and not even a return to seductive sleeve photos could help. For sure, the return of Crawford means a slightly more subtle and inventive touch in the production department, but this time, he seems to have too many other things on his mind, and there are no particularly outstanding grooves or unusual approaches to instrumentation — in other words, nothing even close to the quality of ʽVictimʼ.
For one thing, the entire album stays way too bogged down in the already discredited disco idiom: the nadir is a straightforward disco arrangement of ʽSuspicious Mindsʼ, a song that I have never been a huge fan of, but in the light of this travesty, I will probably have to thoroughly re-evaluate the Elvis performance — the song is totally deconstructed here, stripped of its orchestral flou­rishes and reducing its formerly complex gospel-pop backing vocals to a much more simple (and poorly recorded) female choir, and Candi Staton is no Elvis anyway. When released as a single, the song totally flopped in the US (amazingly, it seems to have charted at No. 31 in the UK), faring even worse than the first single, the uplifting funk-pop anthem ʽCount On Meʼ.
Crawford's two songs are nothing particularly special either: ʽIn The Still Of The Nightʼ has a thick, growling groove provided by bassist Doug Whimbish (best part of the song is his mini-solo in the middle), but little else in its favor, and ʽThe Sunshine Of Your Loveʼ (nothing to do with the Cream song — see, they even put the definite article there to mark the difference) has nothing in its favor at all, other than, if you think about it long enough, you might appreciate the smart­ness of putting a «nighttime» and a «daytime» disco tune back-to-back (hint: the «daytime» song sucks with far more verve).
A few of the choruses have the catchy-through-repetition effect (ʽTender Hooksʼ), but the only song on the entire album that got me interested in its overall sound was the album opener ʽLove And Be Freeʼ, with its tricky mesh of effect-laden guitars and electronics — seems like Crawford had a lot of fun producing that one track, but then, apparently, he just lost interest in the rest of the album, so, despite a tiny increase in quality from Chance and Candi Staton, I still have no choice but to give it another thumbs down.
And that was the end of the line for Candi: after the record bombed once again, she decided that she'd had enough, and with her next album, Make Me An Instrument, declared (in the very first song) that ʽSin Doesn't Live Here Anymoreʼ, switching to a nothing-but-gospel career in the same fashion that Al Green did several years before — and spending the next twenty-plus years loyally and faithfully putting out a new gospel album every one or two years. I have no interest writing about any of these — reviewing a string of gospel albums by a B-level performer is way too much even for the standards of Only Solitaire completionism — but I've heard a few of those songs, and at least she sounded more comfortable singing them than she did trying to find life in all that generic disco crap, so more power to her.
WHO'S HURTING NOW? (2009)
1) Breaking Down Slow; 2) Who's Hurting Now?; 3) I Feel The Same; 4) Mercy Now; 5) I Don't Know; 6) Lonely Don't; 7) Get Your Hands Dirty; 8) Dust On My Pillow; 9) Cry Baby Cry; 10) I Don't Want For Anything; 11) The Light In Your Eyes.
But no, the story does not really end with Nightlites. Like Al Green, Staton spent nearly two de­cades doing nothing but gospel — enabling her to stay away from all the detrimental develop­ments in contemporary R&B — and like Al Green, she eventually re-emerged in the early 2000s: rested, rejuvenated, and behaving like the last two decades simply did not happen. In fact, neither did the later half of the Seventies, and that entire disco period was just a bad dream — as long as we can still remember Dave Crawford with a good word, this attitude suits me just fine, too. Her first new stint with secular music occurred on His Hands, recorded in 2006 for the British indie label Honest Jon's Records (founded with the assistance of Blur's Damon Albarn, no less), but the full-fledged comeback was Who's Hurting Now three years later, made at Abbey Road Studios with a bunch of American musicians, including Tony Crow from Lambchop on key­boards and Candi's own son Marcus Williams on drums.
The material here is mostly, if not all, modern, contributed by various contemporary songwriters who usually provide standard fodder for blues and country bands — so one shouldn't really ex­pect anything groundbreaking from this batch. What matters is not the melodies, but the sound of the whole thing: the record is executed strictly in late Sixties / early Seventies style, with a soul / gospel / funk / blues-rock vibe that defiantly ignores all the sonic advances of the modern century and reinstates faith in live musicianship over computer programming. Not that the musicianship is stunningly great or anything: all these Nashville cats that Candi brought over to London are good, but generally sound as if they were just working by the hour — and yet, even without exu­berance and excitement, it is still a pleasure to hear this sound in 2009.
Candi herself has audibly aged, sounding huskier and duskier than she used to, but there is still plenty of soul and conviction in her voice — well evident already on the opening number, the slow soul waltz ʽBreaking Down Slowʼ that points you in the main direction this music is going to take, that of the Tensely Aching Heart. Funky R&B grooves begin to arrive with the title track (cool weaving textures between two well-synchronized guitars and a well-mechanized brass sec­tion) and ʽI Feel The Sameʼ (funk-blues in the style of the dear departed Albert King), but the focus always resides on the singer, which is both a blessing and a curse: she's good, but not that good, and sometimes I quietly wish that the backing musicians had been given a more open chance to shine — there's hardly a single guitar solo anywhere on the album.
The overall reaction is a little mixed, because the main vibe seems confused: on one hand, the album relies a lot on personal tragedy and depressed nostalgia ("I've only just lost the best years of my life", she sings in a genuinely moving manner on ʽDust On My Pillowʼ), yet, on the other hand, this seems just like the kind of record she'd secretly dreamed of making ever since the early hits — one of those «I finally get to do things my way and my way only» moments of triumph, where the artist is clearly elevated by just the mere understanding that she is no longer being exploited by anyone and no longer has to conform to any particular fashion. These two emotions sometimes cancel out each other, confusedly disallowing for a proper sharpening of the feelings; but ultimately, it still comes together with a few nice personal anthems of contentment — ʽI Don't Want For Anythingʼ and ʽThe Light In Your Eyesʼ mix together her secular and gospel experi­ence in subtle ways that make these numbers, clichéd as they are, relatable; the way she delivers that final piece of advice, "don't ever lose the light in your eyes", is quite endearing.
I give the record a thumbs up for totally irrational reasons — had all these songs been recorded by, say, Bonnie Raitt, I'd probably pass them by completely, but somehow Candi just has this hard-to-explain charisma that makes them all seem deeper than they probably really are. Roughly speaking, she seems to believe in this stuff, and she seems willing to inject her personal expe­rience in it, and so, even in the absence of solid, original hooks, when you have a backing band with such a good sound, and a front singer with such a great heart, well, how would it be possible not to recommend this? And I haven't even thrown in the obligatory «hey, at least it's better than all that Rihanna crap» retort yet...
LIFE HAPPENS (2014)
1) I Ain't Easy To Love; 2) Close To You; 3) Commitment; 4) For Eternity; 5) Even The Bad Times Are Good; 6) Beware, She's After Your Man; 7) Treat Me Like A Secret; 8) Where Were You When You Knew; 9) Three Minutes To A Relapse; 10) Never Even Had A Chance; 11) Go Baby Go; 12) My Heart's On Empty; 13) Have You Seen The Children; 14) A Better World Coming.
This is an even more ambitious comeback statement than Who's Hurting Now: with 14 tracks running over an hour, many of them self-penned, and featuring an even tighter and musically sharper band than last time, Life Happens is far more than anybody could expect in 2014 from a former B-grade R&B star that spent three decades in a restricted gospel niche. I have no idea how a «masterpiece» of traditional R&B could sound these days, even in theory, but when you are on nostalgic trips like these, what matters above everything else is devotion — and all these tracks are as fanatically devoted to bringing back the old soul vibe as Candi's albums from those past three decades were fanatically devoted to praising the name of the Lord.
I really don't know much about these musicians (except for Candi's son Marcus, who still helps her out with the drums on about half of the tracks), but they do a damn fine job with the grooves, although in terms of memorability it is the repetitive vocal hooks that will always come first. The best sound is on the tough funky numbers — ʽBewareʼ, ʽMy Heart's On Emptyʼ — but even the slowest ballads that come closest to feeble adult contemporary, like ʽWhere Were Youʼ, are never spoiled by excessive production, with acoustic guitars, electric slide, bass, and organ always taking priority over any synthesizer backup (if it's there at all). And, most importantly, Staton sounds like she really means it — whether it is a nostalgic love song she sings, or an angry social statement she makes, there is no doubt that it all comes straight from the heart this time.
Sure enough, the social statements may seem to be a bit of a joke: Desperate Anthems like ʽHave You Seen The Childrenʼ, lamenting the terrible fate of the younger generation, are lyrically shallow (yes, she does put all the blame on "video games and movies", if you can believe it), and even if the pain, anguish, and fear behind the performance are sincere, it is a little hard to empa­thize unless you happen to be an ex-PMRC member or something. This fear of the modern age even occasionally makes its way into the more personal Man/Woman tunes: on ʽBeware, She's After Your Manʼ, Candi reminds us that "we're living in the digital age" — somehow, that is sup­posed to make your man easily fall for the first camwhore he encounters — but do not judge the lady too harshly: she just has a fairly tight moral code, and if it helps her to make a damn fine record, so be it. Besides, no matter how bad things seem to be in The World According to Candi Staton, there is ʽA Better World Comingʼ anyway: the last track is written in the classic tradition of "everything sucks, but things are going to be better somehow even if there's not a single shred of evidence for this at the moment", even if we all have to die and go to Heaven to witness this (actually, I do believe that is the precise message of the song).
The majority of the songs, however, are about him and her (me and you), reflecting a certain degree of turbulence in the life of the singer — not too surprising, considering that she had just divorced her sixth husband (baseball player Otis Nixon Jr., 19 years her younger, if you want some yellow press details), so songs like ʽCommitmentʼ, a tight, Eighties-style pop-rocker along the lines of ʽEvery Breath You Takeʼ, have a very genuine ring to them — "what I'm searching for is a man who'll stand by me", she sings after six unsuccessful attempts, but the fun thing is, she is clearly not losing hope, though, as she admits herself on the very first track, "I ain't easy to love". Without making any judgements of character whatsoever, I must say that Candi's turbulent love life at least made for an interesting musical reflection — with the exception of some of those thoroughly faceless disco albums, there's a little bit of her personal story in every record she makes, and now that she's way past 70, that story has not ceased to be interesting.
Not to mention that for a 72-year old singer, she sounds awesome: I've always held the opinion that singers with «unexceptional» voices truly reap the benefits as they manage to outlast singers with «exceptional» ones, and this case confirms the rule — these days, having to choose between Candi and Aretha, I'd go for Candi without blinking: where 21st century Aretha sounds like a sorry shadow of her former self, Candi Staton goes on sounding... just like Candi Staton. Of course, that voice did sink about one octave lower, but that just added gravity and maturity, and she never tries to sing outside of her new range (unlike Aretha, who still likes to demonstrate how she can hit these high notes if she reaches up all the way on the very tips of her toes).
I do believe the record deserves a thumbs up, after all. Most likely, if she keeps on going like this, she is bound to lose it sooner or later, but as of 2014, there's taste, style, genuine feeling, power, an occasional catchy chorus — solid counterevidence to the statement that an old man (woman) ain't got nothing in the world these days.
CAPTAIN BEYOND



CAPTAIN BEYOND (1972)
1) Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air); 2) Armworth; 3) Myopic Void; 4) Mesmerization Eclipse; 5) Raging River Of Fear; 6) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (intro); 7) Frozen Over; 8) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays (Time Since Come And Gone); 9) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 1); 10) As The Moon Speaks (To The Waves Of The Sea); 11) Astral Lady; 12) As The Moon Speaks (Return); 13) I Can't Feel Nothin' (part 2).
This band, and their debut album in particular, seem to have acquired somewhat of a cult status over the years — as usual, once one becomes sick and tired of all the predictable art-prog-rock masterpieces of the early 1970s, the discovery of something seemingly special under the surface is always a source of joy, and yes, you can construe Captain Beyond as a band that had some­thing special about them if you really put your heart and mind to it.
The band's background does not look terribly auspicious: a «second-rate supergroup» assembled from past members of early Deep Purple (singer Rod Evans, whose main claim to fame was the popularity of ʽHushʼ), Iron Butterfly (bass player Lee Dorman; also guitar player Larry ʽRhinoʼ Reinhardt, who only really played with the band on one of their albums, and far from the best one at that), and Johnny Winter's band (drummer Bobby Caldwell). All of these people were known to be «okay» at their jobs, but you wouldn't want to accuse any of them of having a unique style or songwriting genius or anything. So how could they all get together and make a record that not only would not stink, but would even be capable of getting a cult following?
Essentially, by sounding like a slightly softer, slightly more «sincere» (rather than openly post-modern-cynical) version of Blue Öyster Cult. On the whole, Captain Beyond could be classified as hard rock with a psychedelic edge, relying on a combination of heavy distorted riffs, spaced-out guitar soloing, and half-macho, half-stoned vocals (to acquire which Rod Evans had to smoke triple amounts of pot and grow himself an extra pair of testicles — at least, if you compare this style with Deep Purple circa 1968) suggesting that only strong, well-endowed males with big swords and hairy chests deserve to go to psychedelic heaven (think also of Hawkwind, although Captain Beyond are more song-based than jam-based, and sound more like a tight rock band than a bizarre psychedelic orchestra).
This can theoretically be a fun suggestion if you don't take it too seriously, and, indeed, the record is quite pleasant. Side A is essentially a collection of loosely joined not-too-fast riff-rockers; Side B is technically more conceptual, with two mini-suites consisting of several short movements, but there's not that much difference in terms of atmosphere, and there are soft acoustic interludes on both sides. The band also experiments with time signatures (the rhythmic pattern on ʽDancing Madly Backwardsʼ, for instance, does suggest a bit of moonwalking), delays and echoes (ʽMyopic Voidʼ owes a heavy debt to Jimi), and occasionally tries to build up some suspense (ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ, probably influenced by Electric Ladyland and In The Court Of The Crimson King at the same time) — in other words, spending half an hour with Captain Beyond is anything but a boring experience, and it is nice to see how those guys managed to bring out the best in each other where few people probably suspected that «best» existed in the first place.
Unfortunately, the songs do not lend themselves easily to detailed descriptions, largely because there isn't much diversity — a bit slower, a bit faster, okay — and because the riffs, while defi­nitely «crafted» rather than just tossed off at random, are not awesome by themselves or even tremendously original. Everything is perfectly enjoyable while it's on, and there's plenty of headbang potential in numbers like ʽI Can't Feel Nothin'ʼ or ʽRaging River Of Fearʼ, but all of these elements had been well exploited before; in fact, the album looks positively archaic for 1972, because this heavy-psycho style was already present on plenty of «nuggets» from the US and UK scenes circa 1969-70 — yet, unlike Blue Öyster Cult, these guys were not smart enough to turn the whole thing onto itself and give it a smarmy, ironic, self-interpretative edge.
They were smart enough to give the songs a slightly paranoid edge: with the exception of a few starry-eyed misfires (ʽThousand Days Of Yesterdaysʼ), the album sounds like the band is perma­nently on the run from something, be it a «raging river of fear» or a «myopic void». This is pro­bably the only angle from which the record could ever be loved by anyone — with enough listens, it can become a «Manifesto of the Impossibility of Escaping», which certainly goes against the common trend in that era's progressive rock. But it is still difficult for me to lock myself onto that vibe, because the ingredients aren't fully adequate to the task; and, for that matter, Rod Evans is just not that good a singer to properly convey paranoidal horror.
Ultimately, the guys from Iron Butterfly are the main winners here, supplying decent riffs, mo­destly energetic solos, and (sometimes) expressive bass lines (Lee Dorman is at his best on the softer numbers, most notably ʽAs The Moon Speaksʼ), and because of their honest work and the general appeal of the record, I give it a thumbs up without too many reservations. But do not really expect some unique forgotten masterpiece — I'd say this is about as good as the actual Iron Butterfly at their best (which, admittedly, happened rarely).
SUFFICIENTLY BREATHLESS (1973)
1) Sufficiently Breathless; 2) Bright Blue Tango; 3) Drifting In Space; 4) Evil Men; 5) Starglow Energy; 6) Distant Sun; 7) Voyages Of Past Travellers; 8) Everything's A Circle.
Although the band's second album was recorded less than a year after the debut, it already re­flected some serious changes in the lineup: keyboard player Reese Wynans was brought in, along with Guille Garcia on various (mostly Latin/African) percussion, and original drummer Bobby Caldwell was replaced by the much less known Marty Rodriguez. Additionally, Lee Dorman emerged as the only active songwriter , pretty much responsible for the entire structure and sound of the record. The result is fairly obvious: they drift farther away into the direction of symphonic-progressive rock, «cosmic conscience» and stuff, leaving much of the hard rock baggage behind, so there's just no way one could call Sufficiently Breathless a balanced mix of hard-rock and art-rock, and this is probably why the album usually tends to get a bad rap compared to its predeces­sor (even if there's still plenty of heaviness drifting about).
As somebody who likes the heavy-prog sound of Captain Beyond without being floored by it, I must say that from such a standpoint, the two records, although sounding quite different, are just about equal in overall quality. This here is pleasantly melodic, modestly catchy, adequately voca­lized, intelligently composed rock music, already a little outdated even for 1973 (but perhaps more easily appreciated in retrospect, as our perspective of time becomes more and more flat­tened and distorted), but totally inoffensive and occasionally charming in its hippie idealism. Its only real problem is contextual — everything that you hear here, you can hear done a little (or a lot) better by other acts (some of them already defunct by the year 1973).
Thus, the title track is an acoustic anthem in the vein of Crosby, Stills & Nash (except for the dis­torted psychedelic guitar solo that combines real nice with the acoustic rhythm track), a clever enough opener to pour some sunshine into your living room, but neither the instrumental exube­rance nor the chirpy vocal harmonies are on the required level to push the whole thing off the ground. ʽDrifting In Spaceʼ is a potentially great Latin rocker with a cool «exploding fireworks» lead guitar riff introducing each sung verse, but none of the verses is even resolved properly — they build up the tension all right, but they never explode it! And what's up with the quiet jazzy electric piano solo? It's nice, but in a song like this, it could only serve as a taster for a kick-ass guitar extravaganza, which never comes — it's like this whole song was thought of as a counter-example for aspiring songwriters: «here's what happens if you have some cool ideas but fail to bring them up to logical conclusions».
Pretty much every song offers something, but the something is never enough. Kick-ass guitar extravangzas finally arrive on ʽEvil Menʼ, a slow funk-rocker with Rhino milking the wah-wah for all it's worth, but the song's potentially fabulous heavy riff is inexplicably kept in the faraway background most of the time (maybe they thought that if they put it up front, they'd be sued by Deep Purple for ripping off ʽSpace Truckin'ʼ which it somehow resembles, but come on). ʽStar­glow Energyʼ has a great moody start, with probably Rod Evans' finest vocal performance on the album, but despite all the soulfulness that they try to muster, the song still never finds a proper climactic peak — the guitar solos are too quiet, the mix is too muddy and preoccupied with psychedelic sound effects, the fadeout arrives unexpectedly and again leaves the impression of something unaccomplished and unsatisfactory.
And yet, I am still surprised at how every song here sounds organic, warm, and tasteful — few things are easier than being embarrassed and angered at the unimaginative, derivative, inadequate pretense of a second-/third-generation art-prog outfit, but maybe it is precisely because Captain Beyond take so few risks that they consistently deliver this very decent vibe, almost free of cor­niness even when they tackle formulaic lyrical subjects (maybe it's just that Rod Evans, whose voice is not strong enough for operatic behavior, sounds like an honestly concerned human rather than a cocky showman even when he asks you "what is wrong with this world of mine, falling in a spiral?"). This way, although I'm pretty sure that in a week from now, I will not be able to re­member a single note from this album, the overall impression will still remain as a vague cloud of positive vibrations, and so, here is a thumbs up rating while that cloud is still holding together, nice, juicy, and thick.