We gotta start off with the biggest surprise of the weekend. With her artist bio comparing her to the greats Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, I thought Candi Staton was hype, plain and simple. But I was still intrigued, and my buddies and I ended up slithering through the crowd to see her play at a prime spot in the Plaza Mayor of Caceres.
Immediately we knew we were in for a treat. With a full band (including a swimsuit-wearing guitar player) keeping it tight and funky and three backup singers taking their turns both supplementing Candi while also soaking up the love of the crowd themselves, Staton turned her diva on full and powered through a catalog of soul tinged Motown with heavy heaps of gospel and funk. While many of her songs were religious, she kept the preaching largely at home, instead moving the crowd with her spirit, still too strong even after 71. The whoa moment came late in her show, after the audience was good and warmed up. She dropped a 80s stylized beat and started singing the now ubiquitous lines, "Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air..." I immediately thought to myself, why would this 71 year old soul singer sing a Florence and the Machine jam when she dropped a knowledge bomb, saying that it was her original song, recorded over 25 years ago.
It's funny how little we can know about the music we love, but her dropping that was like having churros unexpectedly at the end of a long night-it just kept getting better. Her original (heavy disco-soul) was later released in 1986 with The Source (which sounds like an 80s Deadmau5 track) which was then later released by Florence and the Machine which was then remixed by XX. The track clearly has something magical about it, something that let it emerge like it did and remain relevant for so many decades. Whatever it is, the crowd on Friday definitely felt that magic, and while I felt like momentarily like a fool, the music was too good for me to second guess myself.
Original
1986 Remix
XX Remix
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