There's a point in every Candi Staton song — past the denial, past the heartbreak, past the throat-tightening despair of happily never after — where you just want to the shake her and scream, "Dammit, woman, that bastard done you wrong! He ain't worth another minute!" But then the next song cues up, with all its trombones and handclaps and steeple-echoing greatness, and you fall once again into the silly goosedness of love.

Who we're in love with — him the rake, or Him the Father — is a mystery. That's 45 rpm-style Southern soul done right, and no other Betty (or Bettye) nails it quite like this former Muscle Shoals-circa-Fame pet.

The 66-year-old genre queen spent most of her early career kicking it on the gospel circuit with the likes of Mahalia Jackson, but abandoned Him in the early '70s to make broken-record disco hits "Victim" and "Young Hearts Run Free." But after the coke spooners snorted her up and spat her out, she took a seat in the front pew and never looked back.

This year's His Hands (Honest Jons/Astralwerks), a gospel record rich with covers (Merle Haggard, Solomon Burke) and liner notes dotted with repo-popular indies (Will Oldham, Lambchop), is testament to the refuge of old-time religion, and the hard luck that drives us there.