mid-life converts

[desdemona]

Da house of the rising Sun

By David Sinclair

Viewpoint: Save a prayer for the singers who have found God and poor sales

IT HAPPENS at some point in many a pop star’s career. Having pursued a lifestyle of hedonistic excess, nourished by a daily diet of sex and drugs, they suddenly get religion.

Prince is the latest in a long line of unlikely mid-life converts — a gang not to be confused with the Gospel choirs of Christian pop stars nurtured by the church (Patti Labelle, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly), the young ’uns from Christian families (Boyz II Men, the Backstreet Boys) or the Contemporary Christian Music brigade (P.O.D, Evanescence and Incubus).

Prince, who not so long ago was hymning the delights of non-stop sexual congress in songs such as Sexy MF and Superfunkycalifragisexy, is now to be found accosting residents in his home town of Minneapolis with the question, “Would you like to talk about Jesus?”

He is now a Jehovah’s Witness. “We have watched Prince since he started studying the Bible and noticed a dramatic change,” said Ronald Scofield, an elder of Chanhassen Congregation, Prince’s place of worship. “It’s something to be very proud of.”

Which is more than can be said about the purple one’s fluctuating fortunes in the pop marketplace in recent years.

And Madonna, whose show was once deemed blasphemous by the Vatican, has refused to schedule any performance on her forthcoming tour on a Friday, in order not to contravene the doctrines of her newfound religion. Madonna is an adherent of kabbalah, an offshoot of the Jewish faith, which has become fashionable with a raft of celebs, including Stella McCartney, Courtney Love and Britney Spears.

But in a case of the biter being bit, Madonna has run into trouble in her attempt to stage a huge show in Ireland on August 29, a Sunday. A local priest has described Madonna’s decision to perform there on the Sabbath as “inconsiderate and insensitive” in a largely Catholic country. Touché!

Why is it so tedious to hear about these singers preaching some gospel or other that they have just discovered?

Partly it is the suspicion that they have simply picked up these doctrines as another off-the-peg lifestyle accessory. Having amassed untold riches, indulged their every material whim and been pampered like deities, they now feel the need for spiritual fulfilment. They want to talk to us about Jesus, but do we want to listen?

Sinéad O’Connor, who in 1992 tore up a picture of the Pope on the US TV show Saturday Night Live, was ordained as a priest in the Latin Tridentine Church in 1999. Her album Faith and Courage (2000) was crammed with a hotchpotch of religious references, including a Kyrie Eleison. It was, by far, her least successful album.

For the pop star, getting religion can be a survival tactic. When Boy George joined the Hare Krishnas, it was a step towards cleaning up his act. “The beliefs of the Hare Krishnas have helped me get off drugs and alcohol — and I love their music,” he said. It is too bad that nobody liked George’s after his conversion, for he enjoyed no more significant hits under his own name, let alone under the cringe- making group identity of Jesus Loves You which he adopted.

But with so many stars having turned to the scriptures, from the Old Testament musings of Bob Dylan and Nick Cave to the Buddhist beliefs of Tina Turner, Beastie Boy Adam Yaunch and Annie Lennox, could there be more to the quest for spiritual fulfilment than meets the eye?

“The world is craving spirituality so much right now,” Carlos Santana said in 1995. “You can only wake up to it, and music is the best alarm.”

This seems to be what happens to many stars, who can find it difficult to accept that they are the authors of the music that has made them successful. Musicians often say that their songs seem to arrive fully formed from the ether. Faced with the extraordinary adulation which their music produces, these stars start to acquire a Messiah syndrome themselves unless they shift responsibility for their gift to a higher being.

But it is curious how the timing of these spiritual calls often coincides with a decline in the artist’s stock. For many performers, faced with a slide from the peak, the idea of dedicating their lives to a higher calling suddenly appeals.

As Prince said, when called upon to explain why he had abdicated his pop throne to study the scriptures: “I’ve been to the top of the mountain, and there was nothing there

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7948-1076812,00.html

[Shawn]

Great story. (Not being sarcastic ;) )

Christian pop stars nurtured by the church (Patti Labelle, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly)

Love that part. I won't argue Labelle, but perhaps the other two were over-nurtured.

I await Prince's knock on my door. I'll talk to him about Jesus.

[joeyz]

Isn't it funny when rich people get bored? :rotfl:

[Ken]

I think it's very funny when rich people get bored.

Just don't get bored, knocking on my door prince, or you'll get one last sexual experience.............my foot, in your ass.

:horny:

[Wolfie]

I think it's very funny when rich people get bored.

Just don't get bored, knocking on my door prince, or you'll get one last sexual experience.............my foot, in your ass.

:horny:

Careful Ken, he might actaully like it and then you might have problems. :P

[Redneck4sure]

I think it's very funny when rich people get bored.

Just don't get bored, knocking on my door prince, or you'll get one last sexual experience.............my foot, in your ass.

:horny: 

Careful Ken, he might actaully like it and then you might have problems. :P

Ken and Wolfie......you are too funny!! Remember safe sex. Ken, put on a rubber boot!

[rainbowdemon]

Great album!!

Hardly a coincidence that Ken Hensley came with a debut album in 1973. His creative peak, that was the time when URIAH HEEP reached their pinnacle, having released in 1972 fantastic double-shot of "Demons And Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday" and being on the threshold of "Sweet Freedom", which was the reason why "Proud Words" didn't receive due appraisal. Recorded with support from HEEP's rhythm section, Gary Thain and Lee Kerslake, the album is both close to the band's output and as far removed from it, judging on the opening "When Evening Comes". Blues signals the guitar direction rather than keyboards-based one might expect from Hensley. Off romantic verses, intensity builds up to three guitar layers measuring the emotional depth on to liquid solo. Still, bar-room piano paves a way for a tad bleak "A King Without A Throne" Thain covers with his ornaments.

Going for the proximity to his proceedings with the band, Ken takes two rabbits out of his hat. "Rain", for one, shows no drastic difference from "The Magician's Birthday" version, it may even seem a bit superficial compared to David Byron's delivery and more reliable on electric piano but boasting expressive backing vocals on organ bed during last chorus. Then, "Proud Words" were originally tried at the "Demons" sessions yet didn't make it onto the album: its optimistic drift would be at odds with mystic atmosphere. Here the song's where it belongs, guitars less heavy than Mick Box's while voice goes lower than on the band's demo (it appeared for the first time on "Time Of Revelation" box set) making a solid rapport with a bass line, now much elaborate. What's completely different this time is Hensley's trademark slide solo giving a tune a good impetus. And it's hard not to notice the resemblance of "Fortune" dramatic intro to HEEP's "Echoes In The Dark" - there's more to it, more songs in one, that is. Soft strum and fragile voice break into upbeat tempo organ-laden bridges to gather the pieces later. A life told in five odd minutes.

The gentler a song the better, so delicate flow of "From Time To Time" undepinned by synth drone and meandering Hammond and the "Black Hearted Lady" light shade come hard to resist and through hopeful transparency of "Go Down" lead to the perhaps most oustanding moment, "Cold Autumn Sunday". Its simple sincerity makes a tune relate to another Sunday, one where "Lady In Black" disappeared, the same mood holds no tragedy in kissing goodbye once guitar storms over piano. Finally, the melancholy thread running through the album finds a logical resolution in "The Last Time", slide slipping across acoustic strings for the autumn feel to linger on and pointing to "the dusty road without any shoes" to go.

*****

[rainbowdemon]

Not a great album!!

Not so much a comeback album the fans had been waiting for for 17 years, this isn't a letdown either, the title pointing to the record's musical side as its lyrical. A born-again Christian, Hensley set to write songs about Lord and was joined in his attempt by St. Louis, Ken's American hometown, band VISIBLE FAITH, which brought forth some strange fruits: one piece without a trace of an artist whose name's on the cover, and two featuring the trademark Hammond B3. The rest, still, see Hensley doing his thing, keyboards and guitar measured well to not lurch to some particular style but to keep a mood, while the subject matter of the songs is mainly love, sexual and celestial.

With eternal values in the heart of the album, the bookend tracks are too exuberant to fully register with a listener, opening "It's Up To You" and, especially, "The Joy Of Loving Jesus" for a close, their ebullience not matched by the melody. The latter's religious content doesn't matter here, as suggests preceding "The Return", perhaps the starkest and darkest ballad Ken's ever written, yet there's an immense depth to it. The similar wisdom permeats "Moving In", a finger-popping re-make of "In For The Kill" Hensley composed while with BLACKFOOT, and it's as near to the URIAH HEEP canon as it can get.

Despite "Believe In Me" harmonic likeness - deliberate? - to "Wise Man", knack for an emotional tune is retained to kick those who subscribed the veteran's long silence to some writer's block: if mid-tempo "One Tender Moment" humbly begs for string arrangement, poignant "The Cost Of Loving" lies with Hensley's best ballads, leaving inspired "Think Twice" far behind. As a peculiar stand-out track appears "Get A Line", countrified and in its guitar lining very redolent of George Harrison. Not bad, yet not as glorious as it may have been - true to the title though.

***1/3

KEN HENSLEY -

From Time To Time

Viceroy Music 1994