Vickie Winans Has Big Teeth
MOVING BEYOND A FORM OF GODLINESS
TWENTY-THREE
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. ” —2 Timothy 3:1-7
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Music, here, is at a virtual standstill.
200 weeks of talking about it here on the PraiseNet has had
absolutely no effect on the overall sad state of music within
our churches here. Much of it remains mired in 1965. Many
musicians have simply given up, packed up and left, lowering the
bar of our standard of excellence exponentially with each
defection. The musical leadership, here, is in the hands of
well-meaning but ultimately vision-less men content to run in
circles the rest of their lives.
Which brings me to the moment’s observation: Vickie Winans has
huge teeth. Big, bright, sparkly teeth, and a grin that
stretches way across town. She is a lovely woman, efficiently
coiffed and tucked, and she is, in my eyes, the poster child for
what’s wrong with the “gospel” music business. I recently edited
a church dance video where some kids were dancing to Winans’
arrangement of the children’s song “If You’re Happy And You Know
It.” Listening to the track, I couldn’t help but wonder if this
was the best idea Winans could come up with. Does she have so
little to say that she’d waste an entire track on her CD with a
lightweight and amateurish faux-hip-hop take on a song that was
already doctrinally bankrupt to begin with? Did the *Holy*
Spirit lead her to do this?
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the song or with
Sister Winans’ voice—both are fine. It’s that the song,
ultimately, teaches us nothing. Empowers us with nothing, Grows
nothing. Plants nothing. Harvests nothing. It’s a pleasant five
minutes of swaying church folk, but that’s all there is. When
the entire point of Gospel music is to pierce hearts. To
convict, to challenge, to redeem, to reveal the magnificence and
wonder of God. For the songwriter and the singer and producer to
pour themselves into our very lives.
Winans’ song epitomizes the problem with the music here: it
merely entertains Church Folk. It is all designed to evoke
emotion and applause, but it teaches us absolutely nothing. The
lyrics have no bite, no lasting effect. As with the preaching,
there is no musical voice here that leads. That challenges, that
inspires. It is, instead, all minstrel show. All Sherman
Hemsley’s “Amen” sitcom. Many if not most choirs here are simply
not focused and not organized, not dedicated, not electrified,
not plugged in. With precious few exceptions (True Spirit
Baptist Church’s magnificent Voices Of Truth being the shining
example), they seem completely blasé about even being a choir.
The music here, even the best of it, is simply lame. It just
lays there. Not only is the playing bad—the musicians never
seeming to practice together, so there’s just clutter and chaos
Sunday morning—but the overall presentation is a joyless,
dutiful going through the motions. It is a ministry of
obligation because We Need Music At This Section Of The Program.
Nobody sacrifices for music, here. Nobody invests in music,
here. It’s all Vickie and her wonderful teeth.
Which misses the point that Vickie Winans is only a Winans by
marriage. She’s been relying on her ex-husband’s name to make a
living for more than a decade. Just as producer and would-be urban star
Mario Winans has likewise prostituted his father’s name even
while rejecting his dad’s values. Like the Jackson family,
who’ve made and lost billions by exploiting their third youngest
boy, the Winans clan has made a career out of riding the
coattails of the magnificent Marvin L. Winans. Eminently gifted
with a voice that became the standard bearer of 1980’s
contemporary Gospel music, Winans’ golden fog became The Thing
Everybody Wanted To Sound Like. While modifying that sound in
their own way, most popular late 80’s and 90’s Gospel singers
fashioned themselves, to one degree or another, after The Winans
Sound, beginning, first and foremost, with Winans’ own group
with his brothers. Christopher J. Priest
BeBe Winans became enormously popular by taking the Winans Sound
and watering it down a bit to become more palatable to secular
audiences where he and sister CeCe eventually overshadowed
Marvin and his other brothers, becoming one of the most popular
duos in Gospel history. The group Commissioned might as well
have been called The Winans With A Harder Edge, as Keith Staten,
Marvin Sapp and Fred Hammond and others took the Winans sound to
an even more urban and relevant level. With all the money made
during that era, it seems to me these artists should be writing
Marvin royalty checks for exploiting the sound he pioneered.
Vickie, however, was not a Winans. She was the wife of a Winans.
But, attach the word “Winans” to anybody’s name, and it seems a
record deal is possible. Osama bin Winans. Divorced now for some time, Marvin and
Vickie appear to still be good friends, as both Marvin and son
Mario frequently produce her typically lightweight songs, and
Church Folk continue to flock to her silly, unchallenging and
uninspiring performances. She is, for me, the very
personification of what's wrong with the black church here and
other places. The emphasis on materialism. The gaudy,
over-accessorized, fried-hair Church Lady diva. The
insignificant preaching to the choir. I've never met this
sister, but just looking at her poodle photo above, my eyes
begin watering from her perfume. Her image resonates with many
Church Ladies (and, most especially, "first" ladies) in that she
seems woefully disconnected from reality. Out of touch with the
world she purports to minister to.
This overall level of her craft, this seeming to be something
substantial while actually not being anything substantial, is
the bellwether of ministerial effort here. It reminds me of the
Little Rascals/Our Gang classic TV shows from the 1950’s, where
Spanky and Alfalpha would hammer together a boxcar racer out of
old plywood. But, being children apparently without fathers,
they had no real guidance. So, while the boxcar racer looked
like it could compete and certainly resembled the real thing, it
inevitably fell apart before crossing the finish line.
Most black churches select their pastors based on their Sunday
morning performance. On the hoop and holler show. Fairly little
weight is given to those qualities which are more difficult to
define: how well he pastors. How well he administrates. How much
of a father figure he can be to the church family. How much of a
leader he can be in the community. It’s all performance
pyrotechnics. Worse, turnout at church meetings can vary widely.
It’s often hit-or-miss, with a handful of congregants (and, not
always the most spiritual of the bunch) making the most
important choices a church could possibly make.
This is what Paul is referring to when he speaks about some
people having “a form of godliness” while denying the very power
of that which we claim to believe [2 Timothy 3:5]. God is not
moving here because we do not allow Him to move. We do not allow
Him to breathe. We do not allow Him dominion over our lives. We
see through carnal eyes and listen with carnal ears. We elevate
those who seem logically qualified for elevation while
overlooking those with true anointing and vision and voice. We
continue pandering after Saul, who has lost all genuine
connection to God, while keeping David in the field. We’re all
Vickie Winans, using a last name that doesn’t actually belong to
us to make a buck. Cashing checks against a great legacy,
against a great church we neither know nor understand.
17 June 2007
editor@praisenet.org
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