Candye Kane, an ex-stripper/part-time phone-sex operator turned country music and blues queen, had a fifty-four-inch bustline, a heart as big and warm as the San Fernando Valley, and a smile as sweet as the two put together. Unlikely soul mates, we’d met at Manuel’s L.A. boutique and clicked. I, too, grew up in a “House of HysteriaI.”* I loved Candye’s honesty and the way she bucked society. I envied her extensive vocabulary of four-letter words. And I secretly admired the tattoo above her right breast, MartyForever, in hearts and coiled snakes.
Too bad the groom’s name was Thomas.
(from Rain Dodging: A Scholar’s Romp Through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen, p 51)
With the real Candye Kane, 1981.
I met Candye, an American blues singer, entertainer and former adult film star, in LA. She was a dynamic performer. Boy-oh-boy, her wedding at the Palomino Club to Thomas Yearsley, bass player for the Paladins, was more than memorable. The party afterwards, in the Hollywood Hills, lasted a few days. I write about it in my book. Pretty wild.
Candye is recognized as an award-winning songwriter and blues/jazz singer. She was born in Ventura, California, in 1961, and raised in Los Angeles. When she turned 18, she turned to adult modeling and stripping to make some cash, appearing in videos and over 150 magazines.
Candye was accepted into University of Southern California’s music conservatory’s junior opera program when she was 15, but she disliked opera and dropped out. At 17, Kane became pregnant with her first son. She married bass player Thomas Yearsley in the early’80s, with whom she had another son. Candye toured worldwide more than 250 days a year and appeared in many prestigious festivals.
Her first bout with cancer caused Candye to lose over 100 pounds. Her survivors are two grown sons, one of whom, Evan Caleb, played drums in her road band for close to 10 years. In 2008, Kane revealed that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment, but she died from the disease Los Angeles in 2016, aged only 54.
*Candye Kane – A Herstory – Part I https://www.youtube.com/watchv=mQhZW7_Ggww
