Two Miles High Music

CD reissue of this 1980 album from the R&B vocalist. The album features guest appearances from Steve Kahn, Jocelyn Brown, Fonzi Thornton, Ron Carter and The Brecker Brothers. Wounded Bird.

CD reissue of this 1980 album from the R&B vocalist. The album features guest appearances from Steve Kahn, Jocelyn Brown, Fonzi Thornton, Ron Carter and The Brecker Brothers. Wounded Bird.

An R&B and dance music legend thanks to such major hits as "Young Hearts Run Free," Candi Staton has devoted most of the past twenty years as a successful gospel artist. "The Ultimate Gospel Collection" is a blockbuster collection of all of Candi's gospel hits including "Mama," "Sin Don't Live Here Anymore" and others including her collaborations with Dottie Peoples, Joe Ligon of the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Richard Smallwood Singers, and the McCrarys. Candi Staton Pictures

CD reissue of this 1979 album from the R&B/Gospel vocalist. Chance hit the Billboard charts in the summer of 1979. It features Cornell Dupree, Hiram Bullock, Randy Brecker and Michael Brecker. Wounded Bird. 2009.

Japanese edition of the 2006 album from the star of Christian TV that marks a return to the roots with the sound of her first recordings from Muscle Shoals in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Talk about a comeback. The former first lady of Southern soul, now 66, reaches back to her secular heyday for In His Hands, a chronicle of hurt so drenched in raw feeling you can practically wring out the sweat and tears. This is music as time-travel: like Sharon Jones of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings or Bettye Lavette, Staton flouts the rules of modern music-making--nothing flashy here, no tarted-up beats or slick come-ons--in favor of sending her listeners to somewhere deep in the trenches of a heart that--despite it all--refuses to frost over. The wrenching title track tears the no-trespassing sign off the topic of domestic abuse with transcendent honesty, and "In Name Only," a love song, rips delicately at the seams of the soul. Seven of these 11 tracks are covers, but Staton's gift for interpretation and her gloriously clawed-up voice renders them instantly, powerfully her own. In His Hands adds up to a stroke of genius on the part of the normally electro-oriented Astrelwerks label. Look for other forward-thinking, hip purveyors of music to follow suit, unleashing decades' worth of soul on the world. --Tammy La Gorce