Candi Staton has advised young musicians to make sure they have a good lawyer so they don’t get scammed out of money.
The 82-year-old soul legend was asked what lessons she would pass on to aspiring artists, and she claimed she’s not long finished paying back the record label for her 1976 hit ‘Young Hearts Run Free’.
She told the latest issue of MOJO magazine: “Always look at the contract. Go to the tiny print on page three, four, five. They will take advantage of you, you will be paying for every bit of promotion, for every party. Get an attorney to explain it all to you. When you think of how many copies ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ must have sold and yet I only paid Warners back everything last year.”
The ‘You Got the Love’ hitmaker previously recalled having to get her gun out after the promoters of her concert refused to pay her.
In a 2021 interview with The Guardian newspaper, she alleged that “when the promoters tried not to pay I had to get my gun out even though I was shaking in my shoes. Some of them would laugh at me with my little pistol. Others would say: ‘You don’t have to do that, girl. You’re classy’, and pay me.”
Meanwhile, Candi revealed she’s a huge fan of Beyonce and Alicia Keys, as well as her peers, the late Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight.
She said: “I love my dear [late] friend Aretha [Franklin] and Gladys [Knight]. I like Alicia Keys. Beyoncé’s ‘Irreplaceable’ is like my personal life [laughs]. Teddy Pendergrass. Sarah Dash [from LaBelle] was one of my best friends. If I was going through the worst time she would always call me, like she knew. I spoke to her last month and then three days later I saw on Instagram that she’d passed away. I called her number and her sister answered and confirmed it, and I just screamed.”