Candye Kane

Superhero is the name of Candyes’ original song and the title of her latest CD for Los Angeles based label, Delta Groove records. It is also an apt description of the jump blues singer, songwriter and mother from East Los Angeles who has earned this moniker the hard way. Nominated for four National Blues Foundation Awards blues.org (Best Contemporary Blues Female 2011) starring in a sold out stage play about her life and beating down pancreatic cancer in the last two years, 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. Ten 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, Dave Alvin, 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 "fat 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.

 Kane’s tenth CD release, Superhero debuted at number nine on the Billboard Blues Charts. The cd continues to receive amazing reviews worldwide and was the first team effort by Kane and 27 year old guitar virtuoso, Laura Chavez who also plays in Candyes live band. Audiences love seeing two curvy gals onstage together grooving on each others vibe and Candye and Laura love to deliver the goods. With scorching, yet understated guitar work and empowering, healing and sometimes funny lyrics, Kane and Chavez are the feminist fireballs of the future. They enter the studio again in May 2011 to record Kane’s eleventh cd. This CD will be full of the songs of triumph and empowerment that have made Kane a favorite with enlightened congregations everywhere.

Candye has been included in countless Blues and Jazz Anthologies including the Rolling Stone and Musichounds 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 2009, she appeared in Dublin, Ireland for the World Congress for Downs Syndrome with her United by Music charity (unitedbymusic.eu). This project provides performance opportunities, 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.

A fighter par excellence, Candye’s authenticity, determination and optimism keep her shows passionate, honest and irresistible. One evening with Candye will keep the crowds happy, hopeful and coming back for 

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