CANDYE KANE "SUPERHERO" Source: Exclusive Magazine Date: 07/2009 Writer: Russell A. Trunk

Interview | Candye Kane

'Super Sweet Candy ... At Your Service!'

Candye Kane 'Superhero' is the name of Candye’s original song and the title of her just-released CD for Delta Groove records.

It is also an apt description of the jump blues singer and songwriter from East Los Angeles who has earned this moniker the hard way. Nominated for a 2008 National Blues Foundation Award for Best Blues Contemporary Female (the highest honor for blues artists) and beating down pancreatic cancer the same year, Kane is one tough cookie.

Raised in a dysfunctional, blue-collar family, Candye became a teenage mother, a pin up cover girl and a punk rock, hillbilly and blues-belting anarchist by the time she was just 21 years old. Nine CDs, six record labels, millions of international road miles and countless awards later, Miss Kane has proven to be a true survivor as she scrambled her way to the top of the roots music heap, creating a world renowned reputation that has spanned two decades.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Candye - and first wondered just who had been her musical influences growing up and how many still factored into her music today? [Candye] "I was a product of the late seventies and early eighties. I loved Linda Ronstadt and thru her music, I was turned on to songwriters like Hank Williams Sr; and artists like Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells. My earliest influences were country artists but I also liked crooners. I learned all the Judy Garland songs from her movies and dreamt that I would one day play Dorothy in a production on the Wizard of Oz. I also loved Bobby Darin, Eddie Cantor, Connie Stevens, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra, My parents had records of all of the above. I think Patsy Cline is still a big influence as is Judy Garland."

As an artist that is now releasing her tenth CD, how is 'Superhero' different from your very first release - musically and lyrically?
"On my first release, Burlesque Swing, I felt it was important to do songs that were innuendo songs. I liked the sexuality celebration that I found in some of the early blues artists material like Lucille Bogan and Memphis Minnie. I felt compelled to do some sexually titillating material on my first records because I wanted to make a clear statement that I wasn’t shying away from my sexuality or my past as a sex worker. I still did jump blues and boogie, so stylistically my songs haven’t changed much. But I am a better songwriter these days. My songs have a message beyond just celebrating my sexuality and I no longer feel obligated to make a statement about my sexual background. People are well aware now of my past and I simply want to be taken seriously now as a singer and songwriter."

Indeed, with a title like 'Superhero,' we are assuming that it was named after yourself re: your recent battle with pancreatic cancer? Is that correct?
"Yes, super hero was the first song I wrote after my cancer surgery on April 18, 2008. I had 150 stitches in my abdomen and couldn’t sing and could barely speak. I started strumming the guitar because I felt the vibrations from the instrument might be good for my incision. I wrote super hero from my own struggle with healing but also from the perspective of all people who battle life’s challenges and are super heroes in every day life."