Smokie Norful Live
Artist: Smokie Norful
Label: EMI Gospel  
Time: 10 tracks / 65 minutes
 
The old expression goes, “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” but creative fire seems to be what’s missing on Smokie Norful’s new release, Smokie Norful Live. 
 
Make no mistake, Smokie is an incredible singer and a great talent, but in the face of several recent releases that have stepped outside the genre-box, ‘having the talent’ is just not enough to create an interesting Gospel project. Norful can perhaps out-sing Marvin Winans, Israel Houghton, and Tye Tribbett, but these same three artists have boldly transcended the limitations of a ‘house-style’ to produce projects brimming with an intimacy, creativity and musical vivaciousness that renders Norful’s ‘Live’ project adequate but unspectacular. 
 
The aforementioned Tye Tribbett joins Norful on the energetic opening track of Smokie Norful Live, getting things off to a good start. Seven tracks later, Heather Headley teams up with Norful on Lionel Richie’s “Jesus is Love,” for a strong duet on the spiritual pop-ballad. Smokie breaks loose on the nearly-nine minute “Justified,” full of bluesy gospel vamps, nice back-and-forth with the choir, strong, snake-like bass lines, and Smokie’s half preached/half sung exposition on God’s goodness. This earthy workout, one of the album’s high points, is followed by the musically-antiseptic disco sheen of “Mighty God,” an example of exactly what’s wrong with the album – the track could have come from any of a dozen gospel albums, showing little to define the artist, having too little of the visceral quality that a live gospel album should have, and sounding far too polished not to have been ‘sweetened up’ in post production. 
 
None of the above should imply that Smokie Norful Live doesn’t deliver the goods – it’s just that ‘the goods’ sound fairly generic for the most part. After being somewhat disappointed in studio projects that tried to push Norful’s wonderful voice into soul-less synthesizer-heavy contemporary tracks, I was looking forward to the prospect of a live, jazzier context for the singer to really stretch his vocal chops. Smokie’s capable of excellent smooth vocal phrasing as well as being great in front of a church choir (as demonstrated here on several tracks).  
 
Even though the individual tracks are impressive examples of the current state-of-the-art in the gospel music industry, they also reveal a cookie-cutter approach to songwriting and production. “Don’t Quit,” for example, is a slow simmering gospel song with horn parts that sound almost like they were lifted right off of Kirk Franklin’s last project. 
 
And maybe that’s a big part of the problem – we’ve heard it all before – or at least it sounds as if we’ve heard it all before. 
 
The slick production, the generic sound of the band (competent, yes – but generic), the back-up vocalists that sound like (forgive me) canned singers, straight from Nashville… even when Smokie declares, “this is old-school, now – get ready,”  before the last track “I’ve Been Delivered,” we know that this is a version of ‘old-school’ that’s been neatly polished and processed ‘til all of the ‘old’ has been rubbed off. Far more successful is Norful alone at the piano, singing the self-penned testimonial song, “Dear God,” where we get to hear Norful’s stunning voice to full advantage and without distraction.
 
What gave another ‘Smokey’ such staying power? It wasn’t just his voice, although his voice was certainly a big part of the story, but it was songs like “Tracks of my Tears” and “I Second That Emotion” that provided the proper vehicle for that voice. Smokie Norful needs to find songs that express Smokie, the man – songs that will allow him to communicate his vocal gift in a more human, vulnerable, visceral context.
Then, where there’s Smokie there will be fire.
 
 
Bert Saraco
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