Biography
Candye Kane – Still the Toughest Girl Alive
“The Toughest Girl Alive” is the name of Candyes’ original song and the title of her soon to be released memoir and stage play. 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. She has performed worldwide for presidents and movie stars, but her path to success was not always glamorous or easy.
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. Eight 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.
A colorful mixture of the traditional and the eclectic, Kane cut her musical teeth in the early 80’s onstage with Hollywood musicians and friends, Social Distortion, Dwight Yoakum, The Blasters, X, Fear and Los Lobos, to name just a few. While raising two sons, this role model for the disenfranchised, championed large sized women, fought for the equal rights of sex workers and the GLBT community and inspired music lovers everywhere. Her fans are a mixture of true outsiders: bikers, blues fans, punk rockers, drag queens, fat girls, queers, burlesque dancers, porn fans, sex workers, rockabilly and swing dancers, grey haired hippies, sex positive feminists and everyday folk of all ages, flock to see Candye and hear her musical messages of love, hope and empowerment.



Kanes’ live shows are the stuff of legend. She honors the bold blues women of the past with both feet firmly planted in the present. She belts - growls - shouts - croons and moans from a lifetime of suffering and overcoming obstacles. She uses music as therapy and often writes and chooses material with positive affirmations that leave the audience feeling healed and exhilarated. A show that is part humor, revival meeting and sexuality celebration, she'll deliver a barrelhouse-tongue-in-cheek blues tune or a gospel ballad like Jesus and Mohammed, encouraging audiences to leave behind religious intolerance. She’ll slay the crowd with her balls out rendition of Whole Lotta Love or glorify the virtues of zaftig women with 200 pounds of fun. She often says she is a "black drag queen trapped in a white woman's body" and she dresses the part. Bedecked in bright colored feathers, sequins and rhinestones, Kane's performance is Mississippi by way of Las Vegas with a quick stopover in San Francisco.
Her last release, (RUF 2007) Guitar’d and Feathered, garnered rave reviews worldwide and earned her a West Coast Songwriting award for Best Original Blues composition. Kane will go into the studio again in 2009, to record her ninth cd for West Coast blues label, Delta Groove. The cd will feature her smoking live band that includes 26 year old guitar virtuoso Laura Chavez, Kanes’ eldest son, Evan Caleb on drums and bass veteran, Paul Loranger. This newest effort will be chock full of the songs of triumph and positive affirmation that have made Kane a favorite with enlightened congregations everywhere.
Candye has been included in countless Blues and Jazz Anthologies including the Rolling Stone Guide to Jazz and Blues and Dan Akroyds’ 30 Essential Women of the Blues. In addition to her music successes, she is an activist and philanthropist. In August 2008, she appeared in Cape Town, South Africa for the World Congress for people with disabilities with her United by Music show for special needs kids. This project provides performance opportunites, blues history lessons and songwriting instruction to young people with disabilities, encouraging them to write their own blues songs to help them overcome their daily challenges.
Candye is a fighter par excellence and her authenticity, determination and optimism are what keep her shows passionate, honest and irresistible. One evening with Candye will keep the crowds happy, optimistic and coming back for more!
Join the jubilation by booking a Candye Kane shindig today!
For Bookings: steve@piedmonttalent.com
www.piedmonttalent.com
People are talking about Candye!
An Older and Wiser blues diva
– All Music guide
A Blues Diva of the 20th century who can liven up any party without shedding a stitch.
- People Magazine
A serious and seriously powerful singer who lays it all on the line
– The Philadelphia Inquirer
Candye Kane has that big, brassy voice that has authority and sass; the kind of thing men like because its seductive and women like because its powerful – BB King to the San Diego Reader
A voice that is a natural wonder – like the Grand Canyon.
- The Washington Post
This tough cookie wails with a rousing confidence and affirmation of identity and the courage of her convictions
– Downbeat Magazine
Candye Kane may identify as a white trash girl but her music is most certainly high class
– Jazz and Blues report
A smart sassy blues diva mama with a powerhouse voice and a generous frame
– Style Weekly
Bawdy, brassy and gloriously omnisexual, the plus sized singer belts out the blues like nobodys business
– Dallas Voice
Kanes sassy singing is a joy to behold
– Montreal Gazette
The Most powerful and entertaining female blues singer of her generation
– Bluesbytes.com
A natural born, supremely gifted vocalist who can sing her humanity while touching ours
– Illinois Blues.com
Instrumentation
Candye Kane - Vocals, songwriter
Evan Caleb - Drums
Laura Chavez Guitar, songwriter
Paul Loranger - Bass
Discography
1985 A Town South of Bakersfield Part II (Enigma Records/compilation)
1992 Burlesque Swing (self released cassette)
1992 Let's Put The X Back in Christmas (self-released CD with Country Dick Montana of the Beat Farmers and Kim Wilson of The Fabulous Thunderbirds)
1993 Acoustic Variations (Local San Diego Compilation cd)
1994 Home Cookin' (Antone's Records/Austin,Texas)
1994 Rock for Choice (Enigma Records/Compilation)
1995 Austin Rocks! (Antone's Records Compilation)
1995 Knock Out (Antone's Records/Austin,Texas)
1996 Diva La Grande (Antone's/Discovery)(re released 2006 RUF records)
1999 Swango (Sire Records)
1999 30 Essential Women of the Blues (House of Blues)
2000 The Toughest Girl Alive (Rounder/Bullseye Blues and Jazz)
2000 Best of Doo Wop Box Set (Rhino Records)
2000 This House (A compilation CD for Nicole's House/The Nicole Brown Charitable Foundation)
2001 Any Women's Blues (Rounder/Bullseye Blues and Jazz)
2004 Whole Lotta Love (RUF records)
2005 White Trash Girl (RUF records)
2007 Guitar'd and Feathered (RUF records)
2008 The Blues Caravan (RUF records) DVD and CD
2008 Rich Mans War (compilation RUF)
Links
| http://www.candyekane.com |