For over 50 years of her 85 years of life, R&B and Soul music legend Candi Staton has been a successful recording artist. From "Young Hearts" to "Victims" she has delivered heartful hits and never won a Grammy. Her 32nd album, "Back to My Roots" has been nominated in the Best Gospel Roots category after 40 years. The album consists of 12 tracks with the artist dusting off spiritual and inspirational classics along with some notable assists and originals.
“I’m so surprised,” says Staton. “I know it’s a cliché but it’s
Staton has put out a video on Instagram to rally support from Grammy Pro voters. Would you consider voting for me this year? I would be so happy," explaining that she was nominated four time previously.
The album is competing against recordings by The Isaacs, the Gaither Vocal Band, Karen Peck & New River, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. The nomination for Best Roots Gospel Album at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards doesn’t just honor a single project, it celebrates an enduring career that has spanned gospel, soul, R&B and Americana, and marks her return to the musical foundations that shaped her as an artist. Fans and critics alike are hailing the recognition as a testament to Staton’s timeless voice, emotional depth, and creative resilience, underscoring both the cultural weight of her legacy and the relevance of her latest work late in life. The recording is a yesteryear toned assemblage of traditional gospel remakes that demonstrate old school authenticity on hand and modern flow on the other.
Here is what fans and Grammy Pro voters can expect from the recording. . .
The multi-textured project bridges sacred gospel traditions with Muscle Shoals grit, Motown warmth, and British soul influences. The bluesy "God's Gonna Use Me" is a testament to her Christian purpose remaining in her life as artist. "Back To My Roots" features blues-leaning tracks like “God’s Gonna Use Me” and “I Missed the Target Again,” the latter reflecting on Staton’s recent divorce and earning airplay on SiriusXM’s Bluesville. Staton also delivers a soulful take on “My God Has a Telephone,” originally by Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn, pairing her with STAX Records legend William Bell. Frazer’s influence appears elsewhere on the album, reinforcing its contemporary soul edge.
Family and gospel history are central to the project. Staton’s older sister, Maggie Staton Peebles, joins her on the traditional “It’s Gonna Rain” and the 1939 gospel standard “There Will Be Peace in the Valley,” written by Thomas A. Dorsey for Mahalia Jackson. Staton also revisits “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow,” a song famously recorded by Al Green.
A standout original, “1963,” recounts Staton’s first-hand memories of the Birmingham church bombing, offering a deeply personal and harrowing testimony. On “Reach Down and Touch Heaven,” Staton plays piano on a haunting plea for divine intervention in a weary world. The album also nods to classic R&B with the Motown-styled “Love Breakthrough.”
Recorded in part with her British band PUSH, the project includes a Muscle Shoals-styled gospel reinterpretation of The Rolling Stones’ “Shine a Light.” The album closes with “In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled,” originally recorded by late country singer Lari White, ending the collection on a quiet note of faith and surrender.
"These songs represent my roots," Staton adds as she reflects on her many trials and triumphs. "Even the new songs on some level represent something I've experienced and that's what real soul music is about."
One of London, England’s most popular music periodicals MOJO has ran
Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her second eldest son, Marcus Williams, a professional drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson, Isaac Hayes, and Tyler Perry. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton’s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon’s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. “Some of the first songs I ever heard were songs like `Peace in the Valley’ and `It’s Gonna Rain,’” says Staton. “The new songs or cover songs are tracks that remind me of that era when I was growing up as a child and evolving as a young woman. That’s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I’m going back to the roots that made me who I am.”
1. I Missed the Target Again (Candi Staton)
2. It’s Gonna Rain (PD/ Candi Staton arranger)
3. Hang on in There (Candi Staton)
4. Shine A Light (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)
5. Lord Will Make a Way Somehow (Thomas Dorsey)
6. God’s Gonna Use Me Anyway (Candi Staton)
7. There Will Be Peace in the Valley (Thomas Dorsey)
8. 1963 (Candi Staton)
9. Reach Down and Touch Heaven for Me (Candi Staton)
10. Love Breakthrough (Candi Staton)
11. My God Has a Telephone (Aaron Frazer, Micah Blaichman, Wyndham Baird)
Ft. William Bell
12. In God’s Hands We Rest Untroubled (Lari White, Jimmy Stewart, Marion Cannon)
ABOUT CANDI STATION
Candi Staton is a 5x Grammy® Award nominated singer-songwriter who began her professional career as a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio, the first gospel group with a full band. They recorded for Nashboro Records and toured with 1950s gospel legends such as Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and The Staple Singers. By the late 1960s, Staton had launched her solo R&B career with Rick Hall’s FAME Records where she scored over a dozen southern soul-styled Billboard R&B chart hits such as “I’m Just a Prisoner (Of Your Good Lovin’).” Her covers of country songs “In the Ghetto” and “Stand by Your Man” earned her Grammy® Award nominations. She closed the 1970s with Warner Brothers Records where she scored dance hits such as “Nights on Broadway,” “Victim” and her platinum-signature hit “Young Hearts Run Free” that reached No. 1 on the US R&B charts and No. 2 in the UK. In the 1980s, Staton left R&B and began a gospel career that brought more Grammy® award nominations and a string of hit albums. In the early millennium, a series of compilations celebrating her FAME Recordings revived her secular career. She began to make a series of Americana-styled albums that celebrated her southern soul roots such as the critically-acclaimed His Hands (2006), Who’s Hurting Now? (2009), Life Happens (2014) and Unstoppable (2018). Life Happens featured a brilliant Staton collaboration with Jason Isbell, John Paul White (of The Civil Wars) and The Swampers on “I Ain’t Easy to Love.” It earned them an unforgettable performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. At the same time, she’s also maintained a side career with the dance community that has made songs such as “Love Sweet Sound,” “You Got the Love” and “Hallelujah Anyway” major club classics. “You Got the Love” has sold and streamed millions with various remixes hitting the UK Pop chart Top Ten in 1991, 1997 and 2006. The song has been covered with great success by Florence & The Machine, Joss Stone, Becky Hill and Pete Tong, among others. It’s been featured in commercials for Mercedes Benz, Charlotte Tilbury and the TV series “Sex and the City.” Within the last year, Staton has enjoyed millions of streams for new dance cuts with CHANEY (“Lose My Number”), Kelly G (“Power of One”) and Benji LaVida’s viral House remake of “Young Hearts Run Free.”In 2025, Staton received the Americana Music Association UK’s highest honor, the International Lifetime Achievement Award. Recently, Staton attended the opening of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Muscle Shoals: Low Rhythm Rising exhibit that features one of her stage costumes from a 1976 appearance on the TV show, Rock Concert.