Whitney Houston makes a joyful noise with gospel

Date: November 26, 1996
By Sarah Rodman

From The Boston Herald
Submitted by: Larry A.


"The Preacher's Wife" soundtrack, featuring Whitney Houston (Arista). 2 1/2 stars

As a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Whitney Houston sang in her church choir. Because of this Houston feels most comfortable singing gospel music, she has said repeatedly.

It's no surprise, then, that the singer, so prone to overpowering vocal flights, sounds so grounded on the soundtrack to her latest film, "The Preacher's Wife." The album is in stores today.

The fairy-tale film, concerning a debonair angel (Denzel Washington) who comes to the aid of Houston and her preacher husband, will no doubt be given box-office wings by this energetic soundtrack when it opens Dec. 13.

But unlike the soundtracks to "The Bodyguard," which has sold more than 13 million copies to date, and "Waiting to Exhale," "The Preacher's Wife" does not feature other artists alongside Houston. It's a Houston album in every way but name, full of fervent gospel, glossy pop and smooth r&b.

Houston, who hasn't released a solo album under her own name since 1990, has become a soundtrack-only artist, quite possibly to use her stature as a singer to add juice to her stature as an actress.

Those who've written Houston off as a spectacular vocal athlete who treats even Top 40 commercial pap as the Olympics will be hard-pressed to dismiss these supremely uplifting gospel tracks so easily.

Yet, taken as a whole, and discounting two pointless remixes, the album's songs represent a battle between soulful substance and saccharine superficiality. The final score: God one, radio programmers one.

What's so surprising about the seven gospel numbers here, about half the album, is that Houston does exactly the opposite of what one might expect.

Instead of going in for the vocal kill on the hand-clapping, tambourine-shaking, heaven-praising church songs, Houston lays back, sounding loose and warm. She growls playfully on the sunshiny "Joy," the funky "Hold On, Help Is on the Way" and the stately "I Go to the Rock" - all with the superlative Georgia Mass choir - and sounds sincere in her emotional connection to this devotional music. Houston swings with a new soulfulness.

It's easy to see where Houston developed her chops. In a sweet gesture of respect, the star turns over a powerful version of the traditional "The Lord Is My Shepherd" to her mother, Cissy Houston, who imbues the song with a dose of old-time religion and spiritual fire.

That fire holds for the younger Houston in an electric, testifying duet with gospel legend Shirley Caesar on the ecstatic "He's All Over Me." But the constant repetition of the title, followed by "He's keeping me alive!," starts to evoke images of an ad for some heavenly body lotion.

On the remaining tracks, the grandiose glissandi and melodramatic melisma of "I Will Always Love You" return. But then, that kind of grandstanding is required to put over such twinkly and bright "you can do it" songs as the bouncy "Step by Step," written by Annie Lennox, Diane Warren's wretchedly icky "You Were Loved" and the oddly static dance track "Somebody Bigger Than You and I," which features somewhat uninspired vocals from, among others, Mr. Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown.

The oddly melancholic piano ballad "I Believe in You and Me" deserves all the radio airplay it will undoubtedly receive - the first version, that is. The soundtrack also includes a single version, produced by David Foster and featuring behemoth drums and orchestra.

Another certain hit is the creamy, quiet-storm number "My Heart Is Calling," written by Babyface.

Of course, these tracks will shoot "The Preacher's Wife" to sales heaven this holiday season. But it's the joyful sounds of the gospel songs that are truly at the heart of the soundtrack, the film and, perhaps, Houston herself.