MUSIC INTERVIEW: Candye Kane

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MUSIC INTERVIEW: Candye Kane
April 20, 2011
By Frank De Blase
City newspaper

Bawdy blues belter Candye Kane is as tenacious as she is bodacious. Her path has been peppered with speed bumps and challenges that would derail the average Joe. Bad times make for good music, though, and Kane has embraced this adversity face first, leaving some beautiful blues in her wake.

Kane is a self-made woman. Emerging from the wreckage of a troubled childhood, teen pregnancy, abuse, drugs, and notoriety as a plus-sized adult-film star to become the true blues diva she is today, Kane still finds people that don't quite get her or understand. But as soon as these philistines hear the lady sing, they get the news. This woman's voice will break your heart and your back. Her music is traditionally rooted in the bosom of the big women that paved the way, tweaked with twists from other genes and assorted eras. She's lyrically salacious yet still carries herself with dignity and class.

Having recently beaten pancreatic cancer, Kane is working on album No. 12. We chatted on the phone about this victory, her past, her present, the power of words, and why she no longer plays the piano with her boobs. An edited transcript follows.

CITY: Of all the challenges you've faced, what has been the hardest?

Candye Kane: The cancer was probably the hardest. Pancreatic cancer is pretty gnarly. When they tell you you have it, it's pretty scary. You start thinking how much you've accomplished, how much you haven't, and whether you're going to have time to accomplish anything else. So that was definitely the biggest challenge I've had.

How did you beat it?

It was helpful that I had already overcome a lot of trauma in my life. I had a rough childhood. I was verbally abused my whole life. My dad was in prison when I was born. Then I had a baby when I was 17, I became an intravenous drug user, I was a battered girlfriend, then I was a porn queen. So I'd already had a hard-knock life pretty much. But I sort of took control of my life by taking power over the words in my life. Words became really important at an early age, because I was called all kinds of four-letter words before I knew what any of those word meant. So as I grew up, even though my parents were constantly telling me words meant nothing and it was all semantics - words really do mean something. So when I started writing songs like "The Toughest Girl Alive" or "You Need A Great Big Woman To Show You How To Love" or "Superhero," those songs became more powerful than any of the negative words I had been fed.

I was already in the habit of practicing positive affirmation and using words to empower myself. So when I got sick, it was easier. I had a place of grounding to draw upon. I already knew I had inner strength, but I also knew it was easy to let the negativity take over the positivity. So I would allow myself the luxury of 15 or 20 minutes of self pity and crying and feeling sorry for myself every day, then I made sure I countered it with 40 minutes of positivity. I spent time in nature meditating. So I encourage people to get in the habit now of being mindful of the words they're using on themselves and on each other. We don't mean to do it, but we beat our own selves up.

How long have you been cancer-free?

It's been three years since I was diagnosed, two years since I've been cancer-free.

You lost weight, too.

I lost 80 lbs. from the whole ordeal, but I feel great. I needed to lose weight anyway. As I often say, my fat ass saved my fat ass. If I hadn't been fat it would've been a lot more dangerous.

Because of your colorful past, did you have to work harder to prove yourself when you started in on the music scene?

Yeah, I still have to. For instance, this next record will be my 12th record, but I only started getting acknowledged by The Blues Foundation in the last three years. So where were they for the last 10 records?

Why do you suppose that is?

I think I was marginalized because of my background as a sex worker and my outspokenness about it. The blues community itself is marginalized; it's not heard on mainstream radio, it's not celebrated in popular culture. The blues community really wants to be taken seriously as a genre, and the last thing it needs is some porn star riding around playing the piano with her boobs and talking about legalizing prostitution. Now when I'm acknowledged, it's especially vindicating, because I did it my way.

Who supported you initially?

The queers, the fat girls, the rockabilly kids and the disenfranchised people who grasped what I was doing. The blues people were just clueless, even though there was a history of women like me in the blues. Women like Memphis Minnie, who wrote songs about streetwalking and prostitution; women like Big Mama Thornton and Alberta Hunter, with their ambiguous sexuality; and women like Big Maybelle, who celebrated their size.

You grew up in The LA punk scene. What drew you to the blues?

In the 80's in Hollywood it wasn't just punk, there was Los Lobos and The Blasters and Dwight Yoakam and James Harmon and Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs, and The Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and X. And there was a blurring of the lines between the styles. Eventually I married Tom [Yearsley] from The Paladins and he had a great record collection - Magic Sam, Elmore James, Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Before that I was more of a hillbilly purist. I listened to a lot of Kitty Wells and The Carter Family, and Floyd Tillman, the Louvin Brothers and stuff.

How has your music evolved over the years?

I'm kind of more of a blues artist than I was in the beginning. I still throw in a country thing or a doo-wop thing or western swing and even a polka here and there. I'm still a little eclectic. I think I'm a better songwriter now. I've learned to say more with less. I used to rely on sexual innuendo and double entendre, even playing the piano with my boobs, which I don't do anymore.

Why not?

Well No. 1: I don't have a piano player. No. 2: it became something people expected and that bummed me out. I don't like being predictable. And that became the only thing that stuck in people's minds. That's not how I want to be remembered. If I go out, I want to go out being remembered as a songwriter of songs that made people feel better and changed their lives, and not as a girl who played piano with her tits.