Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a dandy.

1913

E.L. Warnock ‘Terms of Approbation And Eulogy’ in DN IV:i 16: candyman. A dandy fellow; a stylish, showy person. [...] ‘He’s quite a candyman’.

2. (US black) a woman’s male partner or (illicit) lover.

1928		Mississippi John Hurt ‘Candy Man Blues’ 🎵 Well all you ladies gather ’round / That good sweet Candy man’s in town / He’s got a stick of candy / Just nine inch long.
1969		G. Davis ‘Candy Man’ 🎵 If you can’t be my candy man, you can’t be my man at all.
1970		Grateful Dead ‘Candy Man’ 🎵 Pretty lady ain’t got no friend / till the Candyman come round again.
1996		Cibo Matto [song title] The Candy Man.

3. (drugs) a drug dealer.

1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1975		Sepe & Telano Cop Team 67: He had chased the ‘candy man’ – the deliverer of the narcotics – into the grocery store.
1987		(con. c.1967) J. Ferrandino Firefight 148: ‘Whose the candy man?’ [...] ‘Uncle Ho,’ Amaro said.
1987		Sydney Morn. Herald 1 Feb. 1/5: He was a ‘real candyman’ who used to trade in gram ‘bags’ of amphetamines.
c.2003		D. Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 Some became the Candy Man slinging weed and acid, others a little older perhaps and better set up got store fronts.
2013		T.F. Dunham ‘Soul Collection’ in ThugLit July-Aug. [ebook] [A] pharmacist paying off his debt by falsifying narcotic orders—our candy man.
2020		A. Parks Bobby March Will Live Forever 269: ‘How’s about we go upstairs and see what the candyman done brought the children?’.

4. (US black) a pimp.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

5. (N.Z. prison) a prison psychiatrist.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 37/1: candyman, the n. the prison psychiatrist.

6. (US) a man who pursues underage young people for sex.

2004

J. McCourt ‘Vilja de Tanquay Exults’ in Queer Street 304: Give me an old geezer so long as he’s sweet / And not a candyman or chickenhawk.