Last week, my friend and Chicago sex column writer Anna Pulley was in town, so we headed to an event at NYC club Happy Ending. It was there that we had the extreme pleasure of experiencing a performance by Candye Kane (right).
I had never seen Candye before, but then, I’m not all that hip to the Billboard Blues Charts (her most recent album Superhero debuted at No. 10). After witnessing the sound that comes out of this woman — a mother, cancer survivor and sex industry veteran, I was converted. I’m not sure to what. But I’m listening to her album right now. And it totally rocks.
Before blowing our minds with her voice, Candye spoke for a few minutes about her past — she’s been a phone sex operator, a pin-up girl, a stripper, and even a porn star. I interviewed her to learn more about her journey from humble beginnings as a self-described “chubby girl from East LA” with dreams of a music career and a lot of talent to becoming a sex symbol and, finally, a blues star with an avid (and well-deserved) cult following.
Tonic: So after you were a phone sex operator, you got into pin-up modeling. Did they make size a big issue back when you got started?
Kane: Yeah, well, I was one of the first, ah, BBW models [that stands for "Big Beautiful Woman"]. There were a few of us, like Mary Waters, with all-natural boobs, you know, and that was a big deal. So, I was on the cover of a bunch of different classy publications, and then I got an advice column for Gent [Magazine] and that was like a real turning point for me, ’cause I could really write what I wanted. I could include what shows I was doing that week or where I was playing or what thoughts I was writing in the studio, so that helped a lot.
Tonic: And you were a stripper for awhile, too?
Kane: Yeah, then I became a stripper, but I was not a very good stripper. I was a good model, because I was good at like, squeezing my boobs together and making cute faces, and I have a pretty face, so I was okay at that, but I never really had a lot of dancing talent. I’m kind of uncoordinated. I wasn’t a good stripper, so it didn’t last very long, but it got me on my first airplane — I’d never been on an airplane before and suddenly I was offered $2,500 a week to come here to New York. I was 18, it was my first trip ever on a plane. And then I got to strip in Hawaii, and Canada … I was a drug user because I was trying to stay thin, as a stripper, but most of the time I went back to my hotel room alone and wrote songs. I had a goal, which was to use [stripping] as a stepping stone to lead to music, and I knew that I had talent. So that kind of saved me.
Tonic: Did your son [born when Candye was 17] come with you to New York?
Kane: No, no, my mom and dad were very good about watching him when I went out on stripping tours.
Tonic: So you had the support of your family.
Kane: Yeah, I mean, they knew what I was doing. They weren’t particularly proud of it. They were always like “what about that money we spent on signing lessons, blah blah blah.”
Tonic: But you made it work!
Kane: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think that they believed that it would work, at first, but now, years later, I mean, my son is my drummer. He’s 28 now. But I lost a big record deal in 1986 with CBS Epic.
Tonic: What happened with the record deal?
Kane: I had a manager who was trying to pitch me to CBS as a born again Christian and a reformed singer, and the day we were going in to sign this big record deal, I was on the cover of Juggs … for like
the 8th time. And so he called me out on it and said “you haven’t done anything I’ve said, you haven’t lost weight, you come in here cussing like a truck driver, you’re on the cover of Juggs, I can’t in good
conscience continue to represent you as your manager.” So, I lost that record deal.
Tonic: One of the things I really love about your story is that you never apologize for it. You’re just like “this is my past, this is what I did.”
Kane: Right, exactly. And I think it made me stronger and better, it made me a better songwriter and gave me depth. I had a rich network of musicians who were in my corner — and it was punk rock Hollywood, it was the 80s, so to be a sex worker on the cover of Juggs who also had a country band and yodeled, it was very like, anarchist, it was a real unusual thing. And Dwight Yoakam in fact told me, “Be yourself. Don’t deny who you are.” When I lost that big record deal, I was really devastated, but you know, I think — I was pregnant again, I had another son, and so I wouldn’t have been able to tour and work that record anyway. So, the universe makes things happen the way they’re supposed to happen.
Tonic: What would you say to people who want to change their career and change their life, not necessarily coming out of the sex industry, but wanting to make changes?
Kane: Well, last year I had pancreatic cancer, and I had a major surgery and I’ve lost a hundred pounds since then, and I’m cancer free right now. And so I’m a very big believer in positive affirmation, and in intention. I really think if you want to do anything, you have to state your intention to the universe, and concentrate on that; put a lot of focus into it every day, and that can help facilitate the change. I also think having a real specific, strategic game plan is what you wanna do, be specific. Not just “I wanna change my career,” but “I want to make forty thousand dollars this year with my writing,” or “cooking,” or
whatever it is. I think if you state your intention that way, and you focus on that? That’s how I beat cancer, was by really focusing on what I wanted to do. I knew that I would live, I knew that I had to make changes in my diet, and I took it as a blessing. And I let the collective healing love of the universe come in and heal me. It wasn’t just that; it was also a good surgeon and early detection, and a lot of factors.
Tonic: One last question: Does your past come up anymore as a detrimental thing for your career?
Kane: Well, there’s still Blues people … last year I made a record called Guitared and Feathered, and the guy I wanted to produce it is a very famous blues and guitar player called Bob Margolin, Bob played with Muddy Waters when he was a young man. Bob didn’t know me, but I knew his work and I wanted him to produce my record. So, he started asking people about me. I had made nine records already, but the first thing Bob Margolin heard about me was “that’s the porn star who plays piano with her boobs.” So there’s a price I’ve paid for being vocal about who I am, but the flip side of that is that I’m able to play New York Gay Pride and the San Francisco Blues Festival. I’m one of the only artists that segues in and out of those different communities. And that’s kept me alive, when Blues is on the downturn. I feel really lucky to be able to wake up every morning — after cancer — and to be able to make music is a beautiful
thing. And I feel really strongly about being not only a positive affirmation person, but being somebody who a sex worker can look up to and go “hey, I can find my way out of this if I want to, or even if I
don’t want to, I can make this as beautiful as it can be while I’m in it.” It’s really important for me, I think, to talk about the fact that we aren’t all bimbos and drug addicts and streetwalkers, that we come from all cross-sections of the culture, and that we have an equal right to be creative just like everybody else.
Tonic: Right.
Kane: And I really feel that the blues community and the sex work community have some things in common, in that, number one: blues was born of oppression, blues music was born at a time when people were picking cotton and they were singing call and response songs in the fields during the most horrendous hardships they could endure. And I think that sex work is also an oppressed, oppressive place sometimes — a place where you can’t always be yourself and be free to do what you want to do. So, I feel like I need to be vocal about those things for those reasons, and to try to find the common denominators between the two communities. I think there’s more there. I think the gay community too — I’m always telling blues musicians that they should play for the gay community, because the gay community understands oppression, because they know what it’s like to be marginalized. So, it’s interesting, but I don’t want to give away all my secrets to all of the blues musicians because I have a niche right here.
For more info about Candye, to read her blog or to order a voicemail message for someone you’re mad at (hahaha), visit CandyeKane.com.
