gospel singer
Personal Information
Born Vanessa Bell on October 2, 1953, in Detroit, Michigan; daughter of Jesse Bell, a minister. Married with five children.
Career
Gospel vocalist. Began singing at age four in Detroit-area churches; worked with Mattie Moss Clark from age of 13; toured and sang with top gospel stars including Rev. James Cleveland, the Clark Sisters, and the Winans as a teenager; released Peace Be Still, 1984; signed to Jive label and released Vanessa Bell Armstrong, 1987; recorded theme for television comedy Amen, 1987; appeared in Broadway musical Don't Get God Started, 1987; released Wonderful One, 1990; released Chosen; 1991; released Something on the Inside, 1993; released The Secret Is Out 1995; released Desire of My Heart: Live in Detroit, 1998.
Life's Work
In the 1990s, gospel music expanded tremendously in popularity as artists such as Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, and CeCe Winans turned the excitement inherent in secular musical styles to religious ends. The music shed its big-Sunday-hat image, and made inroads with the younger audiences that singers hoped to reach. Vanessa Bell Armstrong, an artist steeped in the enduring gospel traditions of Detroit's black churches, did much to blaze the trail that later artists could follow. But when Armstrong first began to merge sacred and secular in her music, she had to endure criticism from the faithful, and it may be that she has received insufficient credit for her part in creating an extremely significant musical movement.
Armstrong was born Vanessa Bell in Detroit on October 2, 1953. Her father was a minister, and she began singing in churches around the city when she was only four years old. In 1966 the gospel choir leader Mattie Moss Clark heard Armstrong sing and took her under her wing. Armstrong traveled with Clark, and under her tutelage received a gospel vocal education in some truly stellar company; among the acts with whom she appeared were the Rev. James Cleveland, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Clark Sisters, and the Winans.
Influenced by Aretha Franklin
Another key early influence on Armstrong's style was the singing of the most famous performer ever to emerge from Detroit's gospel scene, Aretha Franklin, and when Armstrong emerged into her own career, many observers noted a vocal resemblance between the two singers. A married woman with five children, Armstrong made her recording debut late, releasing the album Peace Be Still on the small Onyx label in 1984, when she was 31. The album, produced by Minister Thomas Whitfield, went to the top of the gospel charts.
The year 1987 marked a turning point in Armstrong's career. The success of Peace Be Still attracted the attention of big-time talent scouts, and Armstrong was signed to the flourishing R&B label Jive Records. That year, she served notice of her vocal capabilities when she edged out both Franklin and virtuoso songstress Patti LaBelle in auditions to perform the theme song of NBC television's Amen situation comedy. She also appeared in a Broadway theatrical production called Don't Get God Started. But the crucial event of the year was the release of Armstrong's Jive debut album, simply entitled Vanessa Bell Armstrong.
The album drew denunciations from fans of traditional gospel, who, according to MusicHound R&B, accused Armstrong of "backsliding" and "selling out." The source of their negative reactions was the album's stylistic foray into contemporary urban sounds, which was achieved expertly enough that one of its single releases, "You Bring Out the Best in Me," ended up as a hit on the R&B charts. The song drew on a lyric device that would become a staple of both black and white contemporary gospel styles: it intentionally blurred the boundary between religious feeling and romantic love. When Armstrong employed it, though, the idea was still comparatively young.
Appeared with Oprah Winfrey
Despite the criticisms, Vanessa Bell Armstrong was a strong seller and propelled the singer's career forward. She released two more albums in the early 1990s, Chosen (1991) and Something on the Inside (1993), but after that, she took a two-and-a-half year break to appear with television talk show host Oprah Winfrey in a made-for-TV film of the novel The Women of Brewster Place; the film was widely publicized and exposed Armstrong's image to a mass audience. Armstrong's second Jive album, Wonderful One, extended her crossover experiments. It featured the duet "True Love Never Fails," recorded with jazz guitarist Jonathan Butler. In 1990 Jive attempted to cash in on the publicity surrounding Armstrong with a greatest-hits album.
When she reemerged in 1995 with the album The Secret Is Out, she stayed on top of new currents in black popular music and incorporated them into her sound. Increasingly asserting control over her own music, she handpicked the producer for the new album, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based gospel impresario John P. Kee, known as "The Prince of Gospel," whose album The New Life Community Choir Featuring John P. Kee was one of the biggest gospel records of the middle of the decade.
The album featured an even wider stylistic mix than Armstrong had previously attempted. "It's traditional and churchy, but also hip-hop," she told Billboard. "There's the blues ... classical ... he's [Kee] just exploring my talent and challenging me all the way." Such tracks as the hip-hop-inflected "Love Lifted Me" earned Armstrong a place, along with Yolanda Adams and CeCe Winans, in a 1996 Essence magazine feature on the "divas of gospel." A reviewer for American Visions seemed both attracted and unnerved by the new energy of Armstrong's style: "I'm almost afraid to say it, but she does indeed belt out her music with such conviction that the line between gospel and contemporary is blurred. But the meaning is the same: salvation."
Affirmed Commitment to Gospel
Indeed, even as she continued to break new ground, Armstrong reaffirmed her commitment to gospel traditions. She questioned some of her label's more blatant efforts to cross her over to a secular audience, observing to Billboard, "They were trying to direct me into the secular market, and they just lost me. Fans were wondering, 'What's up, you're going secular.' But I never left. I'm gospel, and I'm not going anywhere." She continued to exert influence over secular artists--it was said that vocal diva Mariah Carey studied her singing--but she would close out the 1990s with a spectacular return to gospel basics. In 1998 Armstrong recorded Desire of My Heart--Live, recorded at the Perfecting Church in her hometown of Detroit. The album was released on the Verity label, and its release was accompanied by a video made as it was being recorded. Desire of My Heart--Live marked a homecoming and a moment of renewal for Armstrong in several ways. She wrote the album's title track, the first time one of her own compositions had been included on one of her releases, and she served as the album's co-producer. Armstrong's father, Elder Jesse Bell, was featured on the track "Labor in Vain," and Perfecting Church pastor Marvin Winans joined Armstrong and the church's choir on the barn-burning "He Is Lord." Billboard called the album "an enduring classic." Reflecting on her unheralded influence on gospel music the magazine observed, "It took a while, but the world seems to be catching up to Armstrong." Her second greatest-hits release, which appeared on Verity in 1999, gave gospel listeners the chance to survey the development of her immensely important career.
Works
Selected discography
- Peace Be Still, Benson, 1984.
- Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Jive/Novus, 1987.
- Wonderful One, Jive/Novus, 1990.
- Chosen, Onyx, 1991.
- Something on the Inside, Jive/Novus, 1993.
- The Secret Is Out, Verity, 1995.
- Desire of My Heart: Live in Detroit, Verity, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Contemporary Musicians, volume 24, Gale, 1998.
- American Visions, December-January 1995, p. 49.
- Billboard, April 29, 1995, p. 42; May 30, 1998.
- Essence, February 1996, p. 64.
- www.allmusic.com.
— James Manheim
