'A record that makes you think you've died and gone to heaven. It's that good' (Blues And Soul); 'country soul heaven' (Music Week); 'a thorough object lesson in just how ageless real soul can be... Stunning!' (In The Basement); 'a marvellous work' (Record Collector); 'a stunning return and a hard-won triumph' (Daily Telegraph).
"Candi Staton's triumphant return to soul music. The album combines her own new compositions with originals from admirers like Will Oldham, alongside a handful of revivals of luminaries like Charlie Rich and Merle Haggard. Recorded last year in Nashville by musicians including Aretha's right-hand man Barry Beckett, Jerry Lee Lewis' mainstay Chip Young, and members of the Lambchop crew, this is the soul album of 2006. There are southern soul voices and there are southern soul voices. Raw and ravaged, Candi Staton's is one of the signature sounds of the genre. It's a voice with a tear in it, the cry of a woman wounded by life, by men, by woes turned inwards. On her new album for Honest Jon's, it's also the voice of a gospel singer returning to the music that first made her name: the country soul songs presented by the same label on its 2004 compilation Candi Staton, twenty-six tracks of Muscle Shoals magic." -- Barney Hoskyns
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