Candi Staton Reveals Secret Anxiety - And Why We'll Always Need Disco Music (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

'My Teachers Told Me I'd Never Amount To Anything'

With over 300 songs in her back catalogue and 28 studio albums to her name, Candi Staton is one of the last people you’d expect to suffer from recording studio nerves.

Surely when you’ve written and recorded classics such as ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ and ‘You’ve Got The Love’, confidence in your work isn’t a problem?

Candi Staton

However, speaking to Huff Post UK, Candi reveals that feeling nervous over the quality of her musical offerings has stopped her from sharing material in the past.

“The album I just finished doing is heartfelt,” she tells us. “I did this from my heart.

“I wrote nine songs and I just wanted to do something [that] I wanted to do.

“All my life, I've done what producers say, what record companies say ‘do this like this’, ‘no, go back in and redo the vocal again’.

“I wanted to do something - for once in my life, before I leave this earth - that I felt I wanted to do from the heart."

Candi’s career began in the 1950s, and since then she’s worked with a number of big name producers. However, she insists that she still faces confidence issues after over fifty years in the music business.

Candi

“When you’re working with other well known writers and producers, you feel a little intimidated to present them,” she explains.

“Sometimes you’re like, ‘my songs don’t come out like theirs, so I’m not even going to introduce them, I’m just gunna stick them back here in the bag’.

“You always have that little self-doubt and that was my problem.

“I always had self-doubt about whether the songs were good enough.”

“You never get over it,” Candi reveals. “It all starts in childhood, when people tell you ‘sit down, you’re not good enough’.

“One of my teachers told me I would never amount to anything. and I proved to them I would!”

“I had to get to an age where I don’t care anymore,” she laughs. “When you get to a certain age, if they like, it’s fine, if they don’t - hey!”

The disco icon also reflects upon why her genre is still so popular. This weekend, Candi will perform at the desert island disco-themed Bestival, where Chic featuring Nile Rodgers will also take the stage.

“Disco’s coming back!” she states. “It was such a great era, it was beautiful I think people need to dance, they need disco music.

“They need to get up and shout.

“We’ve got so much devastation and murders and so much terrorism and all that stuff - what are we gunna do except get depressed, if everybody don’t start dancing?”

Candi latest album ‘Life Happens’ is out now. She performs at Bestival this weekend.

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