Candi Staton at the Jazz Cafe

There's no stopping Candi Staton. A soul star since the late sixties, she is still recording and is still a dynamic performer, as she demonstrated forcefully at the Jazz Cafe last night. Her set included songs from her early days when she recorded with Rick Hall at Muscle Shoals, the disco period of the seventies, her later hits in the eighties and nineties and several tracks from her new album Life Happens. Backed by two excellent backing singers and a decent band, including her son Marcus on drums, the 74 year old looked trim in a black leather dress and provided great entertainment for the packed venue.
Her southern soul career was represented by excellent versions of her 1969 recording I'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart (Than A Young Man's Fool), Sweet Feeling, her R and B cover of Stand By Your Man (interpersed with Stand By Me) and Elvis's In the Ghetto. Her mid period success in the seventies and eighties was covered by Nights On Broadway and her 1982 cover of Suspicious Minds. And she brought things right up to date with Even The Bad Times Are Good and She's After Your Man from her new CD.
But of course many of the crowd were there for her huge disco hits. Early in the show she promised a surprise and this turned out to be a guest appearance by pop star Pixie Lott, fresh from her appearance on the launch show for this season's Strictly Come Dancing the previous night.Together they performed an extended version of her monster hit Young Hearts Run Free, a hit in 1976 and again in 1986 and 1999, during which Candi introduced the band. Finally Candi sang her anthemic hit You Got The Love, another song that has been a hit more than once.
After 75 minutes the show was over, with no encore, but it was enjoyable and the noisy crowd, many of them not even born when Candi had her first hit, certainly had a good time.
Nick Cobban

Here's Candi with Pixie Lott.