Disused Railway Tunnels Uk

Soul-searching leads Candi Staton back to gospel

Almost 60 years on, Candi Staton still recalls clearly the moment when an angry divide between religious and secular music came into shocking focus for her.

“I was about 12 and I was at a concert when Rosetta Tharpe came on,” Staton says. “She was a top gospel artist in America. She went over to Europe and they really accepted her. But then she came back, and the news came before she arrived that she had ‘backslidden’ – that means going back from the gospel – and I was there when they booed her off stage and threw things at her. It was terrible. It scared me no end.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – who would later, incongruously, perform a concert for Granada TV on a rainy disused railway station platform in Chorlton-cum-Hardy – was not the only gospel singer who risked religious ire by recording secular songs. Sam Cooke was another gospel singer whose first forays into pop had to be recorded under a pseudonym for fear of the wrath of God-fearing fans.

So pop music really was dangerous stuff in the USA of the 1950s?

“It was serious,” Staton agrees. “They would not receive you again if you crossed over and sung anything other than Amazing Grace or other gospel songs. It had to be all or nothing.”

Today, on her fifth marriage, her problems with drugs and alcohol now 30 years behind her, and after a lot of soul-searching, Staton is much happier with her God and Christianity in general. She will perform her southern soul at the Manchester International Festival’s Pavilion Theatre, but will also sing her gospel music at Manchester’s New Testament Church of God - part of  MIF’s  Sacred Sites, which also includes, at other venues, songs and recitals from Sikh, Jewish, Hindu and Islamic performers.

“That’s great,” Staton says of this multi-faith concept. “I wish them well. I bless them and keep on going.”

Such inter-religious understanding was in short supply during Staton’s childhood. Born in Alabama, in 1940, she was sent to a religious academy from which she was picked at the age of 12 to sing in a gospel trio.

“We were the only gospel group out there with a band.

“And some people were so religious they would not even allow the band to come into the churches. Bass, drums, piano ... all that was ‘the devil’s music’.

“It was fun at first, but when I got to be 16 or 17, I realised we were being taken advantage of. They were making money off us we never saw.

A Quirky, Multicoloured Balloons + Railway Enagagement | Whimsical ...

How much am i loving this rad couple?!!! ******* this much********* I adore their quirky style, the gorgeous photographpy, multicoloured balloons, disused railway and graffitti backdrop.… wowzers :-)

Thanks so much to the brilliant, UK based wedding photographer, Marshal Gray Photography for sharing his brilliant images today, here is what he had to say about the shoot;