Soul singer Candi Staton is back on stage and releasing songs at age 83, showing God’s got the love to see her through.
One of the singer-songwriter’s biggest hits has been given a modern twist by the release of an electro-pop remix: ‘Young Hearts Run Free (2023 Edit)’.
Now Candi, who credits Jesus as her inspiration, has revealed the Christ-led creativity behind the original 1976 hit.
She told BBC Radio Four’s ‘Woman’s Hour’: “David Crawford was my producer and the strangest thing happened during the session. He fasted for 40 days for this song: no food, water, and just juices for 40 days. He said, ‘I’m gonna write you a song that’s going to last forever’.
“I didn’t know what he meant. I told him my story about the abuse and I was with someone at the time I couldn’t get away from. (The abuser) was threatening me and my family and my children. I would sit there and tell him about it over lunch and I’d realise he was writing something down. He was actually writing ‘Young Hearts Run free’. He got in the studio and finished it.”
Crawford, who was also a gospel radio DJ, had another surprise during the recording of the song.
“I was just singing my story in three minutes. I sang the song once. He said, ‘You can come in now. I got what I want.’ I said, ‘But I was just practising.’ He said, ‘No, that wasn’t a practice. That was you, and that was from your heart. Now you can do it again if you want, but I’m using the first.’ That’s how that song was birthed.”
Along with a cover of Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand By Your Man’, it’s the Alabama-born artist’s biggest US hit.
In the UK, it’s been trumped by a song written as a Christian anthem: ‘You’ve Got the Love’.
Candi performed the 1986 hit at the Kite Festival of Ideas in Oxford this year and, despite her age, is working hard on her resurgent career. Benji Levita’s 2023 remix of ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ has more than 2.4 million streams on Spotify and features on 60,000 TikTok reels.
Candi’s been inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame after recording 30 albums.
Among all those songs, ‘You’ve Got the Love’ became her intensely personal, triumphant life anthem.
“I had breast cancer when that song really hit me. I was singing it before just cause I liked it.
“But when I would go down the hallway for chemo, I would throw my hands up in the air and say, ‘Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air. I know I can count on you. Sometimes I feel like saying, Lord, I just don’t care, but you got the love I need to see me through’.
“And he saw me through every session. I’m here today because I threw my hands in the air and counted on God and he saw me through.”
