Live StrongThey don't call
Vickie Winans the "Hardest Working Woman in Gospel" for nothing. The 52-year-old, Detroit-bred singer just released her newest CD, 'Woman to Woman: Songs of Life,' which came in at No. 1 on Billboard's Gospel Chart and cracked Billboard's Top 200 chart at number 87. "I ain't going to stop working until I sell a million copies of this album. Then I can go somewhere and sit down," Winans told me following her in-store appearance at a Wal-Mart in Detroit.
Fans were lined up a block and a half long, hoping to get a signed copy of the CD and see Winans perform. "Everybody in the Wal-Mart was crying. They were shouting in the Wal-Mart. They took off and was running into the shirts. I thought they were going to put us out of there. The Wal-Mart people were like, 'Oh, our shirts,'" laughed Winans. "But I was telling those people what I had been through and they were like, 'My God, if she can make it, I can too!'"
What Winans has been through is conveyed through music on 'Woman to Woman.' The two-CD set is a compilation of new songs and covers of songs that helped her cope with the various crises in her own life. It features appearances by Winans' sons
Marvin Winans Jr. and Bad Boy recording artist
Mario Winans. "I've been through everything. I'mma tell you, I tell people I've been evicted, convicted, depressed, possessed and repossessed. I lost my baby girl; she died. My daddy died instantly after leaving my house on Christmas day. I've been divorced. I've been sick. I've been down to 99 pounds while sick and almost at death. I've been broke. I've been fat. What else can you go through?"
Winans said that it was during those low points in life that she promised God she'd record an album that would encourage women in the areas that were difficult for her. "At those times, I was using songs to soothe the things that were hurting me. I promised that one of these days, I was going to make a record, and I am going to think about all the things that ever happened to me and I am going sing until I get it all out. I have been thinking about doing it for 10 years," she said.
Music and the support of her mother
Mattie A. Bowman is what kept Winans from her breaking point. She said she doesn't know where she would be now if her mother had not stayed by her side. "My mom was the reason why I didn't' go into total depression about being sick and almost dying. I would lay in the bed for day in and day out. I didn't want to get up, and I didn't want to take a shower. I just wanted to just die. You sick for eight months and don't anybody know what's wrong with you. I had 12 and 13 doctors, and they were just giving me medicine to treat symptoms. I needed somebody to help me," recalled Winans.
Though people call her a "superwoman," Winans knows it's impossible for her to meet everyone struggling with issues she faced. But it's her prayer that her spirit resonates through her CD and gives women the support that her mom gave her. "Now I can't physically be at everybody's house. But through my lyrics and through my songs and through the feeling that I can put in a CD, I can still be able to lift you, bless you, make you jump and make you know that you can triumph. Make you know the rainbow is coming. This storm is over! You may have another one that you're going to go through, but this storm, you won't have to see this one anymore. That's what I am talking about," she explained.
And women are responding! Not just by purchasing the CD, but they're overloading the singer with correspondences as well. "I opened my email up the day that [the CD] came out and there were 611 emails. I had just answered it the night before. People have been calling me, emailing me, telling me, 'My God! We love this CD,'" said Winans.
If making music wasn't enough for Winans, who also manages herself, the singer has recently added the title supermodel to her resume. She's the latest spokesmodel for the
Donna Vinci clothing line and will actually be appearing with the line at the MAGIC Show in Las Vegas Aug. 28-31. Look out
Tyra Banks! "She don't have to look nowhere," laughed Winans. "That Tyra Banks is beautiful. You need to be put in jail for that Jawn. That Tyra Banks is all that and a bag of chips!"
Page 2 Of The BV Buzz
