Candace Hastings - Soft Place to Land (2026)

A nice, pleasant, easy-going old school Country endeavor opens with “Loving Cowboys” with a cool jazzy piano application tied to Candace Hasting’s warm countrified vocal. Can I call this country-jazz, or will I get hate mail? Can you sing country at a smoky cocktail lounge in New York City? If yes, this is the ideal song to crush those butts out & sit back & listen while sipping a cold gin & tonic. I believe Billie Holiday would have challenged herself with this & won.

Texas-born cowgirl & Indigenous artist Ms. Hastings (guitar) still has some homework to do (but not much) with her intonation, but her tone & phrasing are well-defined & her song themes have pleasant surprises. Creative themes, subjects, & topics are painted with a broad brush in her material. Nothing sappy, contrived, or convoluted here. The title track “Soft Place To Land” is arranged quite well, despite still being a soft touch country approach. Needs a little more inflection on certain words. It seems she’s developing a style of her own & has all the maps & compasses to achieve this.

Candace has 8 inventive melodic tunes on Soft Place to Land (Drops June 18/Independent/29:21), recorded in Texas. It’s an easily digestible set of fine songs produced by Pat Manske (drums) & Lloyd Maines (guitar/mandolin/pedal steel/dobro) with one track produced by Pat with Keith Davis (guitar/dobro/bass). The majority are ballads, all impeccably played & warm. “I Was That Woman” with the subtle pedal steel that moves the tune along beautifully with Candace’s soft-as-a-cushion voice. Not whispery or breathy,

Some tunes have storytelling charm & Candace knows when to emphasize her lyric. “Come Home” has simplicity working wonders in its showcase. Not quite at the level of Patsy Cline or Brenda Lee, but the hints are evident in tunes like this. Candace is primarily an excellent ballad singer & shapes her tales with enough care to render her material almost meditative.

“It’s Too Damn Hot” is a pleasant, humorous song that taps into a Leon Redbone vaudeville exhumation, along with the fiddle & pedal steel pouring throughout. Redbone didn’t sing country, but his spirit is in this tune because, to my ears, it sounds like it should be playing on a Victrola. Ms. Hastings does a fine job. She plays it close to her chest, avoiding the pitfalls of turning the tune into a novelty song that could get campy. This performance is not. Her website says: small songs about big things. I agree. But she could sing Broadway songs too. But to be honest, she looks good in a Stetson with these songs.

Highlights – “Loving Cowboys,” “Soft Place To Land,” “I Was That Woman,” “Come Home,” & “It’s Too Damn Hot.”