Candi is sweet

Date Published: 17-Jul-2009

SOUL-STIRRING singer Candi Staton plays the Róisín Dubh this Sunday, July 19 as part of this year’s Galway Arts Festival.

Famous for hits like 1975’s Young Hearts Run Free, Staton is still writing today and her most recent albums have been critically acclaimed.

“It’s really wonderful that you’re able to stay busy,” says Staton. “That’s my joy right now, just doing music, writing, singing, travelling and performing. It’s really a joy to do it.”

Staton has been writing songs for over four decades and is never short of inspiration. “I heard Michael Jackson say something,” she says. “Someone asked him how he wrote songs and he said ‘I don’t write songs, they write themselves.’ So I pick up a title – maybe I hear someone say something and then I’ll just write that line down and work around it. Eventually the music’ll come with it and that’s the way I go about it.”

Like Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and other performers of her generation, Candi Staton…