Michael W. SmithI'll Lead You Home
Michael W. Smith(Cassette) ISBN 701-010-6526 $10.98
(CD) ISBN 701-010-672-X $15.98
Review by Bill Hobbs
Michael W. Smith is one of a handful-okay, two -contemporary Christian recording artists who in the latter half of the 1980s shattered a big chunk of the wall between the contemporary Christian/gospel music industry and the large mass of listeners on the secular side of the market.
His latest album, the sublimely casual I'll Lead You Home, is a near-perfect example of why it was Smitty whose records helped Amy Grant break through the wall, rather than some other artist. As pop music, it can compete with anything in the secular record bins. As contemporary Christian music, the writing is crisp and direct without being preachy or saccharine or bland.
Alternating between aggressive pop and gently reworked familiar hymns, I'll Lead You Home is not a record that postures perfection or wallows in spirituality. Instead, Smith has crafted an album that seems to say just a few things:
I'm depending on God
Right now, with this album, I could care less about crossover success and pop market sales.
It's not an accident. While writing five songs for the worship-oriented multi-artist compilation My Utmost for His Highest, Smith had time to reflect on his music, his family, and spiritual things. The spotlight of secular market success had dimmed with the lengthening span of time following his big crossover hit "Place in This World" that helped push his albums Go West Young Man and Change Your World to beyond gold.
He played an acoustic tour in 1994, most of the shows on the weekends at churches where Smitty says he grew older, wiser. He calls I'll Lead You Home "the most honest record I've ever done."
"I've failed so many times that I've come to a point of not being afraid to write about it. You tend to write better songs when you just embrace life and experience some tough times. I think I tapped a well inside of me that I didn't ever know was there," he says. "A lot of things have changed in the three years since I recorded Change Your World. With a wife and five kids, I certainly have more responsibilities. Some of the changes have not been easy."
I'll Lead You Home is a smart mix of contemporary pop and rearranged hymn classics. Smith adapted the church standard "Crown Hymn with Many Crowns," setting it to a funky, jazzy, modernized gospel beat and generously shared the vocals with Myrrh Records' quartet Annointed. And he set the Lord's Prayer to new music. Titled "As It Is In Heaven," the song floats along on ethereal piano, percussion, and quietly booming bass drum. Coming as it does after the propulsively rocking "Breakdown," a song about the decline in civility and morality in the United States, it is a powerful moment made even more powerful by the way Smith weaves inspiring fragments of Martin Luther King's recorded speeches into the lyrics.
Another highlight of the record is a trilogy of songs:
"The Other Side of Me" which could be taken to be written about Smith's wife, or about the Lord, flows directly into "Breathe in Me," a simple piano ballad about the Lord's presence. That, in turn, flows into "Angels Unaware," an anthem about the need to treat all souls as potential emissaries from God.
The album's bookends are "Cry for Love," which opens I'll Lead You Home with a cry for help, and "I'm Waiting for You" which closes it with a declaration of the Lord's faithfulness.
"Cry for Love" has an accelerating tempo that starts with the phrase "My life is like a racing car hurtling toward a wall," but "I'm Waiting for You" ends the record on a calming note, with just a gently playing synthesizer, piano, and steel guitar as Smith sings with a breathy, almost carefree voice. It's a gloriously understated piece of writing that he sings from the Lord's perspective: "I walked this road so very long ago/To show the way so you would know...What are you waiting for? I'm waiting for you."
Smitty sold a lot of records back in the days of "Place in This World" and the albums Go West Young Man and Change Your World. A whole lot of records! If not this album, then some album soon, this very talented singer, songwriter, arranger, and piano player will probably sell a whole lot more. But for now, he's been there, done that.
It was time to come home.
Bill Hobbs is a reviewer of music for Christian, country, and gospel audiences.
