(January 22, 2024) After playing “Run Your Race,” the song that keyboardist, singer and songwriter Kandace Springs wrote in tribute of her father who died in 2021, I decided to play “Simple Things,” the duet that Springs and Kenneth “Scat” Springs recorded for her 2018 album Indigo and for 2022’s My Name Is Sheba.
What I heard when I listened to pair perform together are two artists who click. Scat Springs was an in-demand singer in the music city of Nashville. The elder Springs fronted his own R&B band in Nashville and was a backing vocalist for legendary artists such as Aretha Franklin and Garth Brooks.
Scat Springs had the kind of voice and broad-based musical palate that could have put him on some big stages. I suppose that life and music industry business intervened, so he become a Nashville musical legend, which gave him more time to pour into his daughter.
(January 22, 2024) After playing “Run Your Race,” the song that keyboardist, singer and songwriter Kandace Springs wrote in tribute of her father who died in 2021, I decided to play “Simple Things,” the duet that Springs and Kenneth “Scat” Springs recorded for her 2018 album Indigo and for 2022’s My Name Is Sheba.
What I heard when I listened to pair perform together are two artists who click. Scat Springs was an in-demand singer in the music city of Nashville. The elder Springs fronted his own R&B band in Nashville and was a backing vocalist for legendary artists such as Aretha Franklin and Garth Brooks.
Scat Springs had the kind of voice and broad-based musical palate that could have put him on some big stages. I suppose that life and music industry business intervened, so he become a Nashville musical legend, which gave him more time to pour into his daughter.
The seeds he planted in Kandace Springs allowed her to grow into an uber talented artist who has released multiple albums while collaborating with the likes of Norah Jones, David Sanborn, Ghostface Killah and Terrence Blanchard. Prince also thought highly of Kandace Springs, and he became a mentor in the years before his 2016 passing.
“Run Your Race” comes from a place of deep love for the man who laid that foundation. Listeners hear that Kandace shared many good memories with her father but she was there when his health began to fail. The song reflects on the painful process of letting go while also holding on to those simple but special things that make a father/daughter relationship special.
Sports was one of those things. Her father taught Springs run and shoot a basketball in addition to how to play piano. Kandance Springs drives that point home through a touching video shot at a high school track field. Scat Springs was also a record setting track athlete in college, and the song’s title, “Run Your Race,” is an acknowledgement that her father has completed his life’s course and by transitioning he is now free to run again.
Check out the “Run Your Race” and the accompanying video here.
By Howard Dukes
Kandace Springs - "Run Your Race"