Manchester’s Candon Stevens is overwhelmed by response to debut album

By John Herndon, KentuckySings.com

MANCHESTER, Ky. – When Candon Stevens belts out “This God of Mine,” she delivers with a voice bigger than the mountains around her Manchester home.

She just believes her God is even bigger. And she’s seeing that – again – as her debut album, Praisin’ Him, has been drawing rave reviews and her first two singles have been charting on multiple gospel music charts nationwide.

The response has been so overwhelming that Stevens, a small-town pastor’s wife, can’t hold back the tears as she tells about Praisin’ Him being considered for a Grammy Award in the Best Roots Gospel Album category.

“This God of Mine,” released Oct. 1, is the second single from Praisin’ Him to hit radio. “Actually, the Lord told me that there is a precious little lady that goes to our church and that is her testimony,” smiles Stevens, who has sung extensively in southeastern Kentucky churches. “She wrote that song and I had to do something with that song. The Lord said, ‘Don’t let this testimony die.’

“Gerald (Crabb, the album’s producer) said, “We have got to get an album made.”

The project came together and was released earlier this year. Its first single, “It Ain’t Over Yet,” charted and a Facebook video of the song had almost a million views as of early October.

About all one can say is, “Wow! God is Good!”

As she took a break to talk during the Shaping Clay Jubilee, held at Clay County High School in Manchester on Oct. 2-3, Candon Stevens was understandably overwhelmed at how singing for the Lord has changed her life.

“I have been singing my whole life,” she said. “I actually sang my first song in church when I was eight years old at the Burning Springs Church of God. That’s the church where I went when I was a little girl. Two friends and I sang ‘He’s Still Working On Me.'”

Stevens went solo four years later when she sang Barbara Spencer’s “It’s So Peaceful (in the Arms of the Lord).”

“My dad is a pastor and had started a church in Oneida and my mom played the piano. I have been around music all my life. I just love it,” Stevens says. “I can play the piano by ear but I can’t read music. I guess it’s a God-given talent.”

Her husband, Brad, is pastor of Church of God Worship Center in Manchester and, co-founder of Stevens Family Tradition, a popular Bluegrass gospel band that has gotten national radio play and had been invited to sing at the 40 Days of Christian Music festival at the Ark Encounter.

Until going into the studio to record Praisin’ Him, Candon’s public performances had been mostly limited to singing some harmony for her husband’s group or traveling with him to sing at revival meetings.

But things have changed dramatically since releasing the album. She recalls the impact “It Ain’t Over Yet” had on one person. “I got a note from someone She said her husband had left her and she said she was going to end her life. She said, ‘I don’t know how I found it, but that reel just came up on Facebook.’

“To me, if nothing else happens with that song, it was worth it.”

Stevens didn’t say she treasures those notes more than any award. She didn’t have to. The smile and gleam in her eyes spoke clearly.

“I feel like this little bitty thing,” she chuckles. “Last night (at the first night of Shaping Clay Jubilee, Oct. 3), somebody was talking to me and I told them I felt like a little toad frog just hitchin’ a ride on a windshield.”

But along the way, Candon Stevens has looked up to some giants.

“I loved Vestal Goodman,” she says. The profound influence is readily apparent in Stevens’ powerful voice.

“Paula Stephanovich (Price) is someone I looked up to. She is from Manchester and was the worship leader at Burning Springs Church of God. She wrote ‘Jerusalem’ for The Hoppers,” Stevens says.

But through the years, the time-constraints of being a pastor’s wife – “We are pastoring two churches,” Candon says with a smile – an being a mother and grandmother largely limited Stevens’ opportunities to singing where her husband was speaking.

That might still stay the same, but Stevens believes God is working mightily through her music. Her 12,000 Facebook followers would likely agree.

“I just want to let God do what he wants do do with me. I don’t need my name in the lights per se, but if that is what God chooses and opens the door, I will (accept).

“If God opens that door then more will hear about Jesus, that’s the way I see it.”

During the first night of Shaping Clay Jubilee, Candon Stevens delivered her first full concert set, being onstage for 45 minutes. Among those in the audience were Gerald Crabb along with Adam Crabb and Angela Primm, who also sang on Praisin’ Him and were appearing at Shaping Clay.

Also in the crowd was Chris Blue, the 2017 winner of NBC’s The Voice whose work with Bill and Gloria Gaither has made him one of gospel music’s biggest names today. Before he took the Shaping Clay stage, he noticed the power of Candon Stevens’ performance.

“Chris Blue came over and said he could recognize the anointing and said, ‘You have it and that’s what it takes.’

“I told him, ‘That is the greatest compliment anybody could ever give me. I don’t ever want to take these opportunities for granted. I owe it all to God.”

And it looks like He’s still working on, and through Candon Stevens.