There is nothing better on a record than real strings. It takes you back to the days when everyone used real strings – before Pro Tools. A time when dance records, R&B, pop – all music - had real musicians. Real horns. Real strings. Real drums… real singers. Those were the days.  Vanessa Williams is bringing a little of those days back us – the days when music was the real thing.

Listening to Vanessa sing Hello Like Before makes you realize what a brilliant writer and musician Bill Withers was when he was recording. The song is one of the best. And Vanessa does Bill proud with her rendition of this classic song even if nothing will ever beat his original take.  Then Vanessa pulls out two Babyface songs that also remind us of his brilliance. Vanessa’s choices are definitely impeccable.  And to include The Real Thing, a song by one of my all-time favorite artists, Sergio Mendes, which was written by master Stevie Wonder takes the cake.

It’s interesting that Vanessa has always had that pretty voice – not necessarily the booming voice that pulls out those over the top songs in a Patti Labelle kind of way. But with this recording, Vanessa does what suits her voice to a tee. This is the recording that Natalie Cole has been trying to make in her last few futile attempts at R&B and jazz. Vanessa does a little latin, a little R&B , a little pop and a little jazz and she makes it all work in the same recording.

If there were no song, only silence stretching on and on and on, we would be missing a gorgeous recording by the gorgeous Vanessa Williams.