Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200139
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DWIGHT OESTRICHER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Williams, who's won three Grammys and received 11 nominations, has had 24 Top 40 rhythm-and-blues singles and five R&B No. 1 hits, including "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late," with Johnny Mathis.
But she says her latest offering, which includes the standards, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep," and "Brahms Lullaby," with lyrics co-written by Williams, and original tunes, "God Made You Special" and "Jesus is Your Friend," is not an attempt to climb the charts again.
The album of lullabies comes five years after her last pop album and some eight years after her biggest hit, "Let's Hear it For the Boy."
"I didn't consider radio play," the 40-year-old Williams said. "I wanted to do something for children and their parents. It is a risk, but I think it's my job to let the audience for the record know that it's here."
To promote it, Williams has sung a few songs on several television shows, like "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee," and she's done album signings at toy and department stores.
"The idea for it came from my babies, all those years of trying to get them to calm down," she said.
She and husband, Brad Westerling, have an infant son, Logan, and 3-year-old Forrest. She also has two other sons from an earlier marriage - 20-year-old Ken and 18-year-old Kevin, both students at Illinois Central College.
As a young woman, Williams focused on a nursing career, but she dropped out of college because of "poor study habits."
She was working as a candy striper when a cousin auditioned for Stevie Wonder. Williams went along and was hired for his backup group, singing on the albums "Talking Book" in 1972 and "Songs in the Key of Life" in 1976.
Those years brought a fast education in the excesses of the music business, especially when Wonder toured with the Rolling Stones one year.
"Here I am all wide-eyed and innocent asking, `What's that man doing sprawled on the floor?' `Isn't anybody going to help him?,' " she said, laughing.
Prayer helped her during the trying times, she said, plus she was raising two kids after divorcing her husband of five years, Ken Williams, now a dean at Illinois Central.
After beginning her solo career with "This is Niecey" in 1976, Williams put a gospel single on each of her albums. In 1986, she recorded the gospel record, "So Glad I Know,' and won her first two Grammys. The following year, she won another Grammy for the gospel song, "I Believe in You."
But the real rewards, she said, come in the form of such things as a letter she got from a woman who found comfort in, "It's Going to Take a Miracle," as her 10-year-old daughter underwent heart surgery.
"I know that my music has touched people and changed their lives," Williams said. "The joy of knowing I gave something back, something that's wholesome and upright, is what brings me the greatest joy."
by CNB