Candie Payne was a lady I had high hopes for after hearing her first single, All I Need To Hear. The cool sixties stylings of the track sounded like something from a film soundtrack from that era bringing to mind sharp suits and girls in mini skirts, bobs and too much eyeliner. She was a bit more poppy than Amy Winehouse, whose Rehab had yet to be released but which I had heard on The Funk And Soul Show when Eddie Pillar was sitting in for Craig Charles as he had been a naughty boy and actually was in rehab at the time.
I went to see Candie Payne in King Tut's a couple of months later and I don't think that I have ever seen anybody so scared of an audience in all my life, she was shaking when she started, however her voice was something else, understated but boy could she carry a tune and as I said at the start, I thought that she was destined for the kind of attention that Amy Winehouse got for her music before she became tabloid train crash fodder.
Another couple of singles were released, Take Me and the download only By Tomorrow but she didn't get the breaks she deserved and both sunk without a trace. In May 2007 she released her debut album I Wish I Could Have Loved You More which charted in the UK album charts and a single with the same title which crashed into the charts at number 84! Her next single One More Chance was a desperate attempt by her record company to break the charts, Payne left the track off of her album as she didn't think that it fitted with the rest of the tracks. The record company however thought that with the assistence of Mark Ronson, producer of the moment , they would be on to a winner. Candie was proven to be right as the highest position the single reached was # 122. An injustice in my book as the track is good, especially in it's original form before Ronson did his thing to it.
Since then, nothing which is a real shame, as she has a better voice than Duffy, Adele and that Leona Lewis combined. Let's hope that she comes back with something soon.
Candie Payne - All I Need To Hear
Candie Payne - One More Chance (original)
Candie Payne - One More Chance (single Ronson mix)
And as an extra, the b-side to One More Chance, the other vocalist may be familiar and he also wrote the track.
Candie Payne - Shopping
