His Hands

Why does this fantastic artist not release an album a month??She should!! Wow. Dan Tyler's "When Will I" is serious back to church music. Tommy Tate and Richard Kuebler's poignant "When Hearts Grow Cold" is a delightful tear jerker. Whole album is a smash!! Love me some Candi Staton!!

The Queen of Southern Soul returns to her Muscle Shoals roots! And "that sound", as only it could have come from the STAX and FAME glory years, is alive and vibrant as ever and Staton's voice remains an evergreen instrument. This disc finds Staton some forty years from her original R&B hit-maker days (FAME Records 70-74); thirty years from her re-birth as a Disco Diva (WBs. 76-82), an era which also included the classic No.1 "Young Hearts Run Free" and finally HIS HANDS (2006) reaches miles from her most recent invention as an instrument of Gospel. Just listen to HIS HANDS opener "You Don't Have Far to Go"...an invitation to break a heart written by Merle Haggard and served with Candi's hurt, honey-voiced soul or the Will Oldham penned title track "His Hands" where Staton's nuanced voice recalls (perhaps all-too-real) the hateful pain of abuse from a man she really loved. Hearing "How Do I Get Over You?" so closely walks down a road to that Bluesy land of "gravy & grits" Soul and Candi follows the path perfectly...she's home in these well lived-in "life songs"...a quote from the lady herself. Not since the early 70's has an artist such as Candi Staton sounded this real...or this good. Amazing.