Toni Rackard – Unconditional Love

Toni Rackard
Unconditional Love
Behind the Veil Records (release date: April 27, 2010)
www.tonirackard.com

You can see it in Toni Rackard’s welcoming but no-nonsense eyes on the jewel case of her national debut CD, Unconditional Love. This lady is a worship warrior. She makes it plain throughout the album, too, with references in the lyrics to soldiers marching alongside the Lord in a battle against evil. Guess who wins? Look in her eyes again and answer that question yourself.

On Unconditional Love, the Tampa, Florida-based praise and worship leader explores a variety of musical backdrops for songs that she co-wrote with her husband Derrick and several others. Rackard multi-tracks her voice on several cuts, too, creating an instant background vocal group. Regardless of the musical mode, the lyrics cover typical gospel topics: hope, faith, praise, worship, trials and deliverance.

“Let Us Dance,” with its appropriate house beat, is the charmer of several percussive, R&B flavored tracks on the album, but Rackard’s sweet spot is the ballad, as in “You Pulled Me Through,” which she performs with Marvin Winans, Jr. to a teasing intro that sounds like Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” Similarly, the breezy, atmospheric “Lovely Day” contains echoes of Bill Withers’ classic 1980 song of the same title. “I Give My Life to You” and “Sing of Your Great Love” are other ballads that Rackard’s pop-influenced voice breathes to life.

Rackard concludes Unconditional Love not with an altar call but with a shout-out from the dance floor, to come on and do the Kingdom Slide, with Terrence Gammage calling out the moves, such as “holy hop” and “choirboy.” “Kingdom Slide” joins Christopher Page’s “Sanctified Slide” and Dana Divine’s “The Gospel Slide” as praise dances with instructions. As Rackard says, “You don’t have to be in a box because you’re saved.” Amen.

Four of Five Stars

gPod Picks: “Lovely Day,” “You Pulled Me Through,” “Let Us Dance.”

Reviewed by Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.