Where to start with Candye Kane? The obvious place is the name. If it sounds like the moniker of somebody involved in the adult entertainment industry … she was. But this isn’t another faded porn star putting out a slick, overproduced record of mechanical dance music in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a showbiz career. (Believe me, it’s been tried, more than once.)
So although the name sounds like some sort of gimmick, don’t be fooled. Candye Kane, born Candice Caleb, a veteran of the Los Angeles punk scene, has what they call “street cred.” Although this is her first record for Bullseye, one of Rounder’s labels, she has four previous albums, all critically acclaimed. She has appeared on blues anthologies and been included in listings of “essential blueswomen,” and has a loyal following on the European and American blues festival circuits.
The Toughest Girl Alive is an album of swinging, bluesy, jazzy, gritty, torchy songs, with Kane backed by some of the top names in the business. From gospel-influenced originals like the title track to the Harold Arlen standard “Get Happy,” Kane tackles a variety of styles, with mostly top-notch results.
Kane is unabashedly sexy and sexual in her songs and delivery, but it never comes off as cheap or tawdry. She simply revels in her identity as a sexual person, and loves to sing about it.
And sing about it she does. She runs through a litany of various kinds of relationships and sexual habits in “Who Do You Love?”, with the repeated refrain “That’s alright.” The chorus, “Makes no difference to the Lord above/He loves you no matter who you love,” offers her take on the “family values” debate.
She turns the table on “For Your Love,” a self-penned song in which she says she’ll be whoever and whatever her lover needs her to be, from “innocent virgin” to “red light whore” to “butch biker mama” to “White House intern.” She aims to please.
And then there’s “(Hey Mister!) She Was My Baby Last Night,” which is guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of any man, or titillate him, or both. Kane wrote this one too, and it’s short, sweet and loads of fun: “If you can’t keep her busy mister/You might as well set her free.”
The double-entendre is a staple of the blues tradition, and Kane of course takes it to the next level with “Je N’en Peux Plus Sans Ma Cadillac,” a bilingual song with sexual jokes in English and French. Kane follows that up with “Let’s Commit Adultery,” which requires no comment from me.
It isn’t all fun and games, though. The title track alludes to Kane’s past as a single welfare mother, adult movie star and battered wife. And there are songs about the tougher side of love, including “Didn’t We,” “One More Day (Without Your Love),” and “Who Walks in When I Walk Out?” a duet with Earl Thomas.
Kane is also helped out by Marcia Ball on piano on several tracks, Dave Alvin (who produced her previous CD) playing guitar on “Who Do You Love” and “Cadillac,” and some excellent trumpet and sax players on nearly every number. Her voice sometimes is a little thin, particularly on the torchy “Highway of Tears,” but she more than compensates with lots of soul, drive and swing throughout.
There’s a lot of talk about “divas” among today’s pop stars. Candye Kane is a genuine contender for the title: sexy, sassy, brash, with a set of pipes and attitude to spare. The Toughest Girl Alive is serious fun.
*Candye Kane died of pancreatic cancer in 2016, age 54.
(Bullseye/Rounder, 2000)
