Candi Staton: His Hands (Honest Jons Records/Astralwerks/EMI).

REFERRING TO SINGER CANDI STATON'S six-decade-spanning career as varied would be like calling a dinosaur old. Beginning with her first work as a teenage member of the Jewel Gospel Trio in 1953 (an opening act for Sam Cooke's legendary Soul Stirrers), Staton carved out a distinguished soul career. Backed by Muscle Shoals studio players on Fame records in the 1960s and early '70s, she had a number of successful releases, among them the classic "In The Ghetto." Disco-funk anthems like "Young Hearts Run Free" followed. After a creative dispute with Warner Brothers Records (and a subsequent struggle with alcoholism and an abusive marriage), Staton converted to Christianity in 1982, began hosting a still-running gospel television show and released 10 successful contemporary gospel albums through her Beccarah Ministries label (funded partially by, interestingly enough, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's PTL Ministries).

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Recorded with many of the same Fame records musicians who appear on her classic recordings (a retrospective of which was released in 2004, becoming a huge seller in Europe and Asia and creating new demand for Staton as a touring act), His Hands is a return home of sorts for her. At 66, her voice has retained the supple-yet-brittle emotive quality and controlled rasp that made even the simplest tear-in-my-beer country jaunt hauntingly beautiful. Producer Mark Nevers shows a deft hand with well-chosen standards (Merle Haggard's "You Don't Have Very Far To Go" and Charlie Rich's "You Never Really Wanted Me"), four tracks written by Staton herself (the biting "In Name Only" is a standout), and the Will Oldham-penned title cut that allows Staton's return to expand far past easy survivor cliche into the realm of the triumphant.

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