(December 26, 2025) 85 year-old soul music veteran Candi Staton, has earned her first Grammy\u00ae Award nomination in 40 years for her 32nd album, Back to My Roots, (Beracah Records \/ The Orchard). The twelve-track Americana soul set features Staton-penned originals alongside spiritual covers of The Rolling Stones\u2019 1972 cut \u201cShine A Light\u201d and the retro soul singer Aaron Frazer\u2019s \u201cMy God Has a Telephone,\u201d a duet with STAX Records legend, William Bell. The album earned a nod as Best Roots Gospel Album of the Year alongside offerings from The Isaacs, the Gaither Vocal Band, Karen Peck & New River, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. The 68th annual Grammy\u00ae Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, February 1, 2026, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA. It will broadcast live on the CBS Television Network with streaming on Paramount+.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s a clich\u00e9 but it\u2019s always nice just to be nominated,\u201d says Staton. \u201cI was nominated before and a couple of times I was up against Aretha Franklin who I love but I had no chance of winning against her. She just dominated in that era. I\u2019m proud of this album and at this stage of my life, I hope I can finally bring one home before I leave this earth.\u201d One of London, England\u2019s most popular music periodicals MOJO has ranked Back to My Roots at No. 2 on its end of the year Top Ten Soul albums list that includes stellar projects by soulful luminaries such as Mavis Staples, Leon Bridges and Joy Crookes. The album also ranked at No. 27 on the NACC (North American College & Community Radio Chart) Top 50 R&B\/Soul records of 2025.<\/p>\n
The track \u201cI Missed the Target Again\u201d (featuring Harry Connick Jr.\u2019s longtime guitarist Jonathan DuBose Jr.) \u2013 about her recent divorce \u2013 has earned airplay on SiriusXM\u2019s Bluesville and other blues stations. Staton\u2019s sister, Maggie Staton Peebles (who alongside Staton was a member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in the 1950s), is featured on the traditional cut \u201cIt\u2019s Gonna Rain\u201d and on \u201cThere Will Be Peace in the Valley\u201d that Elvis Presley popularized in the 1950s. Staton and her British band, PUSH, went into a London studio to record a Muscle Shoals-styled rendition of The Rolling Stones\u2019 1972 gem, \u201cShine A Light.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c1963\u201d is Staton\u2019s harrowing, first-hand memory of the September 15, 1963, Birmingham Church bombing. \u201cReach Down and Touch Heaven\u201d finds Staton playing piano on the haunting plea for divine intervention in a weary world. There\u2019s a 1960s R&B throwback to the Motown-styled \u201cLove Breakthrough\u201d and Aaron Frazer & the Flying Stars of Brooklyn\u2019s 2017 cut\u201cMy God Has a Telephone\u201d that pairs Staton with STAX Records legend, William Bell. The album closes with the wistful, \u201cIn God\u2019s Hands We Rest Untroubled,\u201d originally recorded by the late country star, Lari White, who died in 2017 at the age of 52. \u201cLari sent me that song to consider at least ten years ago, and I always loved it,\u201d Staton says. \u201cThe record label didn\u2019t want it on the album or something, so I just held it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back to My Roots was produced by Staton with her son, Marcus Williams, a drummer who has toured with the likes of Peabo Bryson and Isaac Hayes. They brought in Mark Nevers of Lambchop fame, who produced three of Staton\u2019s prior Americana albums for Honest Jon\u2019s and Thirty Tigers, to sweeten certain tracks. \u201cSome of the first songs I ever heard were songs like Peace in the Valley\u2019 andIt\u2019s Gonna Rain,\u2019\u201d says Staton. \u201cThe 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\u2019s why I named the album Back to My Roots because I\u2019m going back to the roots that made me who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
I Missed the Target Again (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Gonna Rain (PD\/ Candi Staton arranger)<\/p>\n
Hang on in There (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
Shine A Light (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards)<\/p>\n
Lord Will Make a Way Somehow (Thomas Dorsey)<\/p>\n
God\u2019s Gonna Use Me Anyway (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
There Will Be Peace in the Valley (Thomas Dorsey)<\/p>\n
1963 (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
Reach Down and Touch Heaven for Me (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
Love Breakthrough (Candi Staton)<\/p>\n
My God Has a Telephone (Aaron Frazer, Micah Blaichman, Wyndham Baird) Ft. William Bell<\/p>\n
In God\u2019s Hands We Rest Untroubled (Lari White, Jimmy Stewart, Marion Cannon)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(December 26, 2025) 85 year-old soul music veteran Candi Staton, has earned her first Grammy\u00ae Award nomination in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-371115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}