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HEART TO HEART WITH VICKIE WINANS: Intimate details and the story on how “Woman to Woman: Songs of Life” came to be
On the helm of her latest release, Vickie Winans is the happiest she has ever been. Ironically, she has waded through rivers of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual strain reach the mountain top of personal and professional comfort where she now stands—happiness. She is as free as they come and about what other people think, frankly my dear, she doesn’t have time to mince words. “Woman to Woman: Songs of Life” is the gospel diva’s 10 year d’nouement to pain. Suffice it to say, it has no correlation to or inspiration from R&B singer Shirley Brown’s dramatic “Woman to Woman,” where the wife confronts her husband’s lover in a phone call. But ‘Songs of Life’ is determined to be the balm for such wives and other women who have walked in the shoes of heartache and heartbreak, sickness, rejection, disappointment.
Dedicated to her 82-year old mother Mattie Bowman, the CD is a fusion of traditional gospel, R&B, and smooth jazz that is a bundle of inspiration. Taking over ten years to complete, it is two volumes her most extensive musical work to date, thirty-three tracks (half recorded live, half in studio).
I “girl talk-ed” with Winans recently and discussed her latest work:
Mona Austin: You must be proud of yourself.
Vickie Winans: It was a lot of work. (Referring to an earlier EUR report about the CD release) I got so tickled when you said ‘she lost sleep over this one.
MA: What I love the most about what you’ve done is that you were pouring your heart out for the sake of other women.
VW: Yes.
MA: What experiences from your personal life inspired you to dedicate it to women? (And I know it’s not just for women, but to women.)
VW: Because we hurt heavy. There’s a song I sing, ‘who knows how she’s hurting, how she’s falling apart. Who knows the pain inside her broken heart? Who sees behind the smile she wears . . .Jesus is the one who knows.’ That’s about eighty percent of women because we have to perpetrate and be something that we’re not. We hurt so bad and sometimes we can’t even say it, so I wrote songs for those times when you can’t speak you can always put in my CD and soothe yourself with a song.
MA: Did you write most of the songs on the album?
VW: No, but I selected every single song on the album. I’ve been through divorce twice and sickness and I’ve been evicted, convicted you name it I’ve been through it. I told somebody I’ve been re-possessed, possessed, I just have them screaming on stage. But anyway, I’ve written songs that would have healed anything I would have gone through. So obviously it can heal someone else and it’s for men too.
MA: What was your experience that caused you the most pain that you feel women can identify with?
VW: It probably is divorce. Even a lot of people don’t get divorced, but the pain they go through in marriage when they can’t seem to get healed. It is the worst pain in the world to be in a relationship--
MA: Are you currently married?
VW: Oh, yeah. I’m happy now.
MA: I’ve been to a few concerts and over the last few years you’ve just been beaming.
VW: Yes. Because I’m very, very happy now. I’ve been married—it’ll be three years November 24.
MA: Who is this lucky gentleman?
VW: Joe McLemore and he’s doing a duet with me on my CD. (Track #18m Disc 1).
MA: So he’s a singer?
VW: Yeah, not like me [sic professionally], but he can sing.
MA: Did you meet in the business?
VW: I met him at a Mars auction. He was buying a keyboard.
MA: Hasn’t it been about 3 years since you turned 50 and had this huge celebration?
VW: Yep. I’ll be 53 in October.
MA: So that was a good year.
VW: Yes it was. I got married the next month after my birthday celebration at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
MA: Have you been celebrating ever since.
VW: Yes. I’m just so happy. . .
MA: What do you like in a man Vickie Winans?
VW: Somebody who can and will say their sorry. Most men won’t say that because most men don’t feel they do things wrong or that they can offend you or hurt you.
Part 2 of this interview will resume in next week’s Gospel EUR. However, you can listen to song samples from the new project and attempt to win it at www.lagospelscene.com/w2wwinans-promo-html.
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