{"id":274,"date":"2009-02-06T08:18:29","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T08:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theduanewells.com\/?p=274"},"modified":"2018-07-29T02:11:12","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T02:11:12","slug":"heather-headley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/heather-headley\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather Headley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heather Headley\u00a0has been winning hearts with her rich, soulfully elastic\u00a0voice since the moment she made her Broadway debut as Nala\u00a0in the Elton John\u2013Tim Rice musical\u00a0The Lion\u00a0King<\/em>\u00a0back in 2000. A subsequent star turn in\u00a0Aida<\/em>, two critically acclaimed pop albums, and\u00a0a stack of anthemic hit\u00a0ballads\u2013turned\u2013contemporary club remixes\u00a0later, and the multitalented Headley is releasing her\u00a0first gospel CD, titled\u00a0Audience of One<\/em>. If the Lord\u00a0calls on us to make a joyful noise, then there is no\u00a0doubt that Heather Headley has earned points in heaven\u00a0with her new 10-track collection of pop-inflected gospel\u00a0that may well be among her best work yet. That said, don’t\u00a0call Headley’s latest inspirational outing a return to\u00a0her roots, because this self-proclaimed “church girl”\u00a0will tell you that you can’t return to that which you\u00a0never left.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Advocate.com:<\/strong><\/em>So Heather, I actually listened to your CD\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heather Headley:<\/em>\u00a0OK\u2026<\/p>\n

And I was blown away.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Laughs<\/em>] I thought you were going to come\u00a0for me!<\/p>\n

No, not at all. Listening to\u00a0Audience of One<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0truly like going to church. In all honesty\u00a0it\u2019s a testament to your ability to blend\u00a0traditional and evolving forms of gospel with\u00a0authentic inspiration into the disc\u2019s 10\u00a0hallelujah-worthy tracks. How did you choose the songs\u00a0for the disc?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a church girl. I grew up in church. My\u00a0father is a pastor and we still go to church. I wanted\u00a0[Audience of One<\/em>] to be all of the songs I\u00a0would listen to. I didn’t want it to be all old, I\u00a0didn’t want it to be all traditional, I didn’t want it to be\u00a0all contemporary, I didn’t want it to be all the new hip-hop\u00a0kind of gospel\u2026 I just wanted to find beautiful\u00a0songs that I loved, and that\u2019s what we ended up\u00a0doing. I wanted it to be kind of like a pop-gospel album\u00a0rather than sticking to a particular genre.<\/p>\n

So many artists, particularly those in the realm of\u00a0R&B, say they feel like they’re “going home” when\u00a0they record a gospel project. Does that hold true\u00a0for you?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

To some extent. For me\u2026because I still go\u00a0to church and sing in church, it is a return to me\u00a0doing what I know in terms of singing in the studio.\u00a0It\u2019s kind of a familiar place\u2026at least from my\u00a0standpoint. You know I had a little deal with God —\u00a0not that we’re supposed to make those. [Laughs<\/em>] I\u00a0said, “When you think I’m ready to do a gospel CD,\u00a0I’ll do one — ha ha ha.” You know, that kind of\u00a0thing. I’ve always thought I’d love to do a gospel CD, just\u00a0like I want to do a Broadway CD. I thought it would be\u00a0so much fun. So I had done something for EMI and then\u00a0they called and said, “Do you want to do this gospel\u00a0album?” So I had to go back to the drawing board and say\u00a0“OK, Lord, do you think I’m ready? I’m not sure I’m ready.”\u00a0[Laughs<\/em>] That’s how that came about. After I\u00a0prayed and talked to the [label], I said, “OK, we’re going\u00a0to do this.”<\/p>\n

You’re obviously a spiritual being, so are there\u00a0particularly personal stories attached to any of the\u00a0album\u2019s tracks for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. “Running Back to You” is one of them. I’ve\u00a0always been a fan of Commissioned and that\u2019s\u00a0always been one of my favorite songs from them. When\u00a0we did the album I said, “I wanna try this.” So\u00a0yes\u2026needless to say, I have something about [that\u00a0song] from being a child and listening to\u00a0Commissioned, but then again it\u2019s such a beautiful\u00a0message\u2026such a beautiful visual. It\u2019s the\u00a0prodigal son, or in my case the prodigal\u00a0daughter\u2026and that thing of someone waiting for you to\u00a0come back home. “I Wish” is a song I wrote with my brother Keith\u00a0Thomas and it kind of started with an e-mail that was\u00a0sent to me by my husband’s aunt. It was a forward. She\u00a0loves to forward. She’s the forwarding queen and\u00a0because I love her dearly I sit down and read some of them.\u00a0So I got this e-mail from her and it was about a mom\u00a0who has a terminal illness and is saying goodbye to\u00a0her daughter, but the daughter doesn’t know, and as\u00a0she’s leaving the daughter at the airport for school\u00a0she\u2019s wishing her things. I remember it hit a\u00a0chord with me because my brother had just found out\u00a0that they were pregnant and I have all these children in my\u00a0life, [so] even if I don’t have children myself, I thought,\u00a0What would I want to wish for a child?<\/em>\u00a0So\u00a0that\u2019s how “I Wish” came about.<\/p>\n

In addition to “Running Back to You” by\u00a0Commissioned, you offer your own spin on some\u00a0time-honored gospel classics like Lionel Richie’s\u00a0“Jesus Is Love” on this collection. Did you ever\u00a0have reservations about taking on any of the\u00a0well-established gospel standards you recorded for this album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first there were a few times I wasn’t sure\u00a0that it was all going to come together, but in the end\u00a0I was like, We’re going with this, it\u2019s fine.\u00a0It’s kind of like a dress for me sometimes with some of the\u00a0songs. It\u2019s like, let me try it on. I’m not\u00a0sure it’s gonna fit\u2026we might have to hem it a\u00a0little bit [or] pull some stuff in, but I want to try it on,\u00a0and so we did and it started working. [But] please\u00a0don\u2019t ever think that I\u2019m going up there\u00a0going “Yeah, I got this!” I\u2019m totally scared out\u00a0of my mind. [Laughs<\/em>] I’m normally back there\u00a0going \u201cAwww\u2026I wanna go home!\u201d But\u00a0I\u2019m always trying to beat me. I\u2019m always\u00a0trying to do better.<\/p>\n

Audience of One<\/strong><\/em>opens with a track titled \u201cSimply\u00a0Redeemed,\u201d which begins with the words\u00a0\u201cI am a Christian.\u201d What does that phrase\u00a0mean to you? In other words, what does being \u201ca\u00a0Christian\u201d mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s funny, because I think\u00a0that\u2019s the whole deal with the song. I\u2019m\u00a0not perfect, but this is what I believe\u2026this is who I\u00a0am. I do believe that with Him I am redeemed and that\u00a0one day when we all get to heaven we\u2019ll be\u00a0perfect \u2026 That\u2019s how I see it. I can be\u00a0forgiven and I mess up. Every day I mess up and have\u00a0to ask for forgiveness and I have that forgiveness.\u00a0It\u2019s weird, when we got that song, I remember calling\u00a0[EMI] and saying, “I know this is a ballad, but I think I\u00a0want to start with this.” I said, “I think people are\u00a0going to ask why I wanted to do this album or who I am\u00a0or what I am or what\u2019s going on, so\u00a0let\u2019s just start with this.” [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

There has been growing friction between many LGBT\u00a0people and the church as of late, particularly over the\u00a0issue of same-sex marriage. As a result, there\u00a0will inevitably be those who question whether your\u00a0decision to release a gospel album represents a\u00a0departure of sorts from the gay fans\u00a0who have\u00a0so enthusiastically greeted everything\u00a0you\u2019ve done since your debut. What do you say to them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I think that everybody — people within\u00a0the LGBT community and without the LGBT community —\u00a0if they\u2019ve known me [and] come with me since\u00a0Broadway, [they’ll] know that this is not necessarily a\u00a0departure. I don\u2019t like to call them fans, I\u00a0call them friends, and they kinda know that this is\u00a0just a part of Heather; it\u2019s a branch on her tree.<\/p>\n

I am amazingly\u00a0grateful to [the gay community] for all the support and\u00a0all the love and, to some, for all the impressions that\u00a0I\u2019ve heard have been going on. [Laughs<\/em>]\u00a0I\u2019m terribly grateful. I do know that it seems\u00a0sometimes that there is a friction between the church\u00a0and the community, but I think in all I will say that\u00a0there\u2019s always love because I think that\u2019s\u00a0what God calls us to do. We may disagree on some\u00a0things, but there is love and that\u2019s the overriding\u00a0thing. It really hurts me to think that there\u2019s a lot\u00a0of friction between the church and the community when\u00a0all God calls us to do is love.<\/p>\n

Headley\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Audience of One is available now.<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published at Advocate.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. To read this post and more by Duane Wells at the Advocate, click here<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heather Headley\u00a0has been winning hearts with her rich, soulfully elastic\u00a0voice since the moment she made her Broadway debut as Nala\u00a0in the Elton John\u2013Tim Rice musical\u00a0The Lion\u00a0King\u00a0back in 2000. A subsequent star turn in\u00a0Aida, two critically acclaimed pop albums, and\u00a0a stack of anthemic hit\u00a0ballads\u2013turned\u2013contemporary club remixes\u00a0later, and the multitalented Headley is releasing her\u00a0first gospel CD, titled\u00a0Audience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1590,1588],"tags":[1133,1143,1147],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-interview","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5573,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/5573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}