Melba Moore: An “Optimistic” Singer

By Bob Marovich, The Black Gospel Blog

Melba Moore is known internationally for her chart-topping hits of the 1970s and 1980s, and for her work on stage and screen: the big screen (The Fighting Temptations) and the little screen (her own television variety show).

But Melba Moore the gospel singer?

Sure enough! And she has plenty of reasons to be “Optimistic” about it, too. Her new album, The Gift of Love, a collection of R&B and inspirational duets with crooner Phil Perry, was released on September 29, 2009. The album’s first single, “Optimistic,” is already garnering good radio play.

“I love gospel,” Melba said in an interview with TBGB. “It can do amazing things for you. I feel like when you are singing or praising or worshipping, you are learning, and God is one who is teaching you.”

Melba was born in New York to a musical family. Her mother, Bonnie Davis, was a singer with a hit record (the #1 charter “Don’t Stop Now”), and her biological father was the famous bandleader Teddy Hill. But it was Melba’s stepfather, pianist Clement Moorman, who brought her musical talent to the fore.

“I really didn’t discover music in my life until I was around ten or eleven years old,” Melba explained. “My mother married my stepfather, who is a musician, and he made all of us kids take piano lessons. My mother was a singer and they worked together. Music became the centerpiece of our lives and that’s when I discovered I could sing.”

Growing up Catholic, one of Melba’s first solo songs was “Dear Lady of Fatima.” She also loved jazz. “We would listen to people like Ella Fitzgerald and Nancy Wilson, and then later on, I was in love with Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick…the same singers everyone else was in love with!”

Melba didn’t tune into gospel music until “about twelve years ago. I loved gospel, but I didn’t really listen to it and certainly didn’t think of it as something I could sing.” That changed after she became a born-again Christian (she has since returned to Catholicism) and began working in gospel stage plays.

“I traveled with a gospel play called, ‘Mama, I’m Sorry,’ written, produced and directed by Michael Matthews. That’s when I started to discover some of the gospel artists, because the people I worked with were gospel specialists. I began to listen to singers such as BeBe and CeCe Winans, the Winans, Vickie Winans after she went on her own, Yolanda Adams, the Clark Sisters, and Mary Mary.”

Melba’s other favorite gospel artists include Ann Nesby, Yolanda Adams, Donnie McClurkin, Shirley Caesar, and Cissy Houston.

Even unknown gospel singers have had an impact on Melba. “I’ll never forget, I was watching a TV show and this lady sang. She was all off key, and she had a terrible sound and no sweetness in her voice, but I was sitting there in tears. I realized I passed everything and went right to her soul and her spirit. That is a beauty that only comes from heaven.”

When Melba started singing gospel, “people were fascinated but supportive. Everybody assumed because I am black I grew up with gospel. But I didn’t. I was probably the only one surprised I could sing gospel so well!”

The Gift of Love is a collection of R&B classics and inspirational songs about love and faith, such as “Optimistic,” but it is not her first recorded foray into the sacred. “I have released two ‘hardcore’ gospel projects: I’m Still Here and Nobody But Jesus,” Melba said. She laughs, “Or my attempt at hardcore!”

The Gift of Love is partly the result of Melba’s participation on the Time/Life Songs 4 Worship Soul project of inspirational songs by R&B artists. On it, she sang Andrae Crouch’s “My Tribute” with Freddie Jackson.

“[Producer] David Nathan suggested Freddie and I do a duet [on Songs 4 Worship Soul] and it turned out beautiful. He then asked Shanachie Records if they would be interested in Freddie and I doing a whole album of duets. They were interested, but Freddie declined. So David took the idea back to [Shanachie executives] Randall Glass and Daniel Weiss. Danny suggested they pair me up with one of the label’s artists and recommended Phil Perry. I said, ‘Oh my God, yes!’”

She had not worked with Phil Perry before, but admired his artistry. “I never would have thought of it. It was such a wonderful surprise.”

Melba’s favorite song on The Gift of Love is “Sadie.” She explained: “’Sadie’ is a song about old fashioned black culture, about our grandmothers and great grandmothers. They were very simple and country, very loving and although they didn’t have strong education, they knew about spiritual things. We tried very hard to keep that old fashioned sweetness in there. Everything new is fabulous, but not everything old is bad!”

Besides singing gospel, Melba is now co-owner of a gospel club restaurant in Harlem called Gospel Uptown. It opened this past June and features live gospel and R&B performances. “Just positive music,” Melba added.

“People love the food, the ambience, we’ve had lots of events to get it rolling,” she said. “The greatest challenge now is to make sure there’s always something good going on there so people keep coming back.”