A Dirty Dozen with CANDACE HASTINGS – June 2026

Photo Credit: Albert Suarez

According to a recent press release: “Texas-based Americana / classic country singer-songwriter Candace Hastings is set to release a new album, Soft Place to Land, independently on June 18, 2026. Both cowgirl and Indigenous, Hastings walks in two worlds and builds bridges between them for her and for others, writing songs that connect disparate identities and communities, exploring places, people, and emotions across the eight songs on Soft Place to Land. Hastings wrote her first song in fifth grade. It was a one-chord song, written on the three-quarter-size Kay guitar her mother bought her the Christmas after her father died. Her mother couldn’t afford it, but she knew that music heals. That guitar didn’t just give Hastings a hobby; it gave her a companion. It kept her company through sweltering summers as a kid on the streets of Dallas. Time there stretched long and belonging wasn’t guaranteed, but she found connection through songwriting.” We get Candace to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release. What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through? Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Since I studied literature in college after an inglorious exit from my university’s music program, I see dead poets everywhere. Diehard fans, especially if they were also lit majors, might recognize Emily Dickinson’s Hope is the Thing With Feathers in the bridge of “Come Home” — “Hope is the feather that keeps me hanging on.” Or Robert Frost’s The Death of the Hired Man in the chorus of “Horses I Left Behind” — “Home is where they take you in.” And there might be other allusions and metaphors hiding in plain sight. If listeners find one, I’d love them to post it on my Instagram @candacehastingsmusic.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

I grew up in a large, extended Norwegian Lutheran family who sang grace in four-part harmony at each meal, so I was singing harmony before I could read. Both my parents were talented musicians who never had the opportunity to pursue music professionally. So I’m not sure there was ever one moment when I realized I wanted to be a musician. Music was simply always part of my identity, even during the years when caregiving and other responsibilities pulled me away from performing.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

There’s one song that has been on my set list since I started playing bars and restaurants at 19 in Denton, Texas: John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” especially Bonnie Raitt’s version. The first time I heard her sing it, I was mesmerized. I played it at 19, and I still play it now. What’s special is how my understanding of the song has deepened as I’ve gotten older. The fact that Prine could capture what it’s like to be an aging woman in a loveless relationship while he was still in his mid-twenties and working as a mail carrier in Chicago is astonishing to me. That song is a touchstone because I can see myself in it, and because it reminds me to write songs with layers of complexity and simplicity.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

I hope this is a dead-or-alive question, because I would love to collaborate with Guy Clark. Although I’m not sure how much collaborating there would be. I’d probably just stand there and be awkward. Guy Clark’s songs are living things; his words feel like photographs taken with a 35mm camera. I’d want a collaborator I could learn from, and I can’t imagine anyone I could learn more from.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour? What do you like to do to unwind?

I live near Spring Lake at the headwaters of the San Marcos River, where the Coahuiltecans trace their origin story. I go to the springs and hike the 250-acre natural area behind them, usually by myself, especially when my spirit gets too caught up in things of this world that don’t really matter. It helps me remember what is real and sacred, so I can walk in a good way in my life.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

In a world that sometimes feels built for The Voice, I’m a Nanci Griffith. My music resonates most with listeners who have lived a lot of life, loved a lot of leavers, and come out on the other side stronger and more honest. I don’t often cringe at specific comparisons, but I do cringe at the idea that I should be anything other than who I am. I can only run my own race and hope my music reaches the listeners it was intended to reach.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

I’m mostly a solo artist, but I’m fortunate to be part of a tight songwriter community here in the Texas Hill Country. We all do our own thing, but we get together as often as we can to share a meal. Keith Davis, who produced “Call Your Mama” on my album, is usually the glue who organizes the hangout. By the time the group starts the singalong, I’ve usually gone to bed. But I can make a mean batch of breakfast tacos the next morning.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

I’m always starstruck and awkward, but when I met Lyle Lovett, I really wanted to say something meaningful. Instead, my brain froze, and I blurted out, “You know, we have the same equine veterinarian!” Luckily, my friend stepped in, said something brilliant, and I slunk back into the dark corner of the room.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Writing and creating are the best parts of being a musician. It’s the only time I’m so focused that I’ll let supper boil over on the stove, then look up and realize I’d been working on a riff or a bridge for three hours straight. That flow state is what I’m always hunting. So if I couldn’t be a musician, I’d be a writer. It’s all about making something and disappearing into the work.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

Dream question: What does it mean to be a “new” artist after taking a less traditional path and getting a later start? Answer: It means I’m arriving with a whole life behind me. I’ve been a caretaker, a breadwinner, a parent, and a person trying to balance obligations with desire. For a long time, music had to live alongside everything else. But that life also gave me something to write about. Maybe living this life of mine was a gift I didn’t know I needed, that now was the time to share my songs with real people who’ve also lived rough-cut lives and need some comfort in that space. Tired question: So what’s your genre, really? Are you country, Americana, or what? Answer: I understand why people ask, because genres help listeners find music. But they can also become little marketing boxes that limit the boundaries of what music can be. I’m more interested in whether a song tells the truth than whether it fits neatly on a shelf.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

I wish that when I was younger, I had understood that the “nos” that come with the music business often mean, “No, not yet,” or, “No, not here, but maybe over there.” I gave up on things too early, sometimes after the first no. For any songwriter out there, you have to know the noes are going to fly at you hard and fast. That can’t be the thing that stops you. Keep writing, keep playing, keep developing as a musician and as a writer. Flip the switch from “no” to “know”: know who you are, know what you’re here to say, and know that rejection is not a verdict. As the great Mavis Staples says, “You know you’re worthy / to take up all that space.”

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the recording of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. I may be an Americana artist, but I listen to and have been shaped by great music across genres, and what Stevie Wonder created in those sessions was pure genius. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be in the studio when everything was cooking with Herbie Hancock and that huge cast of musicians. That record still feels limitless to me.

CANDACE HASTINGS LINKS:

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Category: Interviews