c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-Christian singer CeCe Winans has shared most of her recording career with her brother, BeBe.

She’s best known as the female half of BeBe & CeCe Winans, the decade-old brother-sister gospel/R&B team that’s become one of the most celebrated duos in pop music. And she’s the eighth of 10 children in the Winans family- including four older brothers known as the Winans who’ve been serving up faith-filled music the past 15 years.

But it took being paired with a sister of another kind, Whitney Houston, to truly bring CeCe Winans to the masses. Her current duet with Houston, “Count on Me,” is a Top 10 hit, and so is the album it came from, “Waiting to Exhale.”

Winans’ premiere near the Top of the Pops, as they say, couldn’t be coming at a more opportune time.

“A lot of things are happening with me right now,” she acknowledges.”`Count on Me,’ with Whitney, is doing great. But again, it’s a great message song. First of all, there’s only one friend you can count on all the time, and that is having the Lord in your life. But he blesses us with brothers and sisters, and Whitney’s been a friend and partner. I had a blast doing it with her.”

The mass “Exhale” acclaim only amplifies the attention on CeCe Winans’ first solo tour. Winans is on the road supporting her debut solo album, “In His Presence” (Sparrow), released last fall and already a Grammy winner (Best Soul Gospel Album). This month, a single from the album, “Everytime,” takes aim at urban and adult contemporary radio.

For Winans, the temporary break from BeBe has clearly been an “exciting” and “busy” time. She’ll start recording with her brother again by the end of this year. But until then, she’ll continue to answer another calling that’s been getting a response she wasn’t necessarily expecting.

“I’m real excited about the acceptance of the album and what it’s accomplished in such a short time,” says CeCe. “It was a scary thing for me to step out. I’m so used to being with my brother. But this was something we both decided to do a couple of years ago.

“I didn’t know how people were going to accept it, but it’s been great. Even on our duet albums, we’ve always done lots of solos. We both feel we’re solo artists-we just happen to sing together. We want to do it all.”

Instead of typical concert halls, she’s mainly playing the nation’s churches on her maiden solo tour because she feels they best frame the album’s meditative tone.

“BeBe and I, that’s where we started out,” says CeCe. “Our careers blossomed pretty quickly, and so we went straight to theaters. But singing in churches is a lot more intimate to me. It definitely goes with the style of the album.

“You’re who you are no matter where you are, and I sing it the same way. But for a gospel artist to sing in church, it’s like you’re singing at home. It gives you a little bit more freedom, probably. The whole atmosphere only supports what you do. Whereas, being in a hall, you have to make it a church. And church, of course, is wherever you make it.”

“Alone in His Presence” features traditional pop sounds and a number of hymns and worship music, much of it with lush, big-band arrangements. It, too, is a family affair of sorts. BeBe wrote “The Way You Love Me,” with background vocals from Take 6. And Mom Winans joins her daughter on “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

Winans talks about Houston like she’s one of the family, too.

“You know when you meet somebody, it’s like you’ve known her all your life?” Winans poses. “She’s just a warm, down-to-earth person. We just became sisters. We’ve been knowing each other a little while now.”

Winans acknowledges the influence of “Waiting to Exhale” but she wasn’t exactly a fan of the film.

“I wasn’t totally fond of the movie,” she says. “I think it could have been a more positive movie. … I’m just for positive things.”We need more positive entertainment. It’s been too negative in the movie industry and the record industry. First of all, being a mother and having two children who love entertainment, it’s a full-time job trying to see what they should and shouldn’t watch. We need more family-oriented things. We need more clean, wholesome product out there. I’m not alone in that. There’s a whole lot of people in the country who feel that way.”

MJP END ALEXANDER