Consumer Guide Album

Deniece Williams: I'm So Proud [Columbia, 1983]
Minnie Riperton she's not--really. Cameos from Johnny Mathis (body) and Philip Bailey (spirit) bring out the character in her pure, intense soprano, and "Love, Peace and Unity" mentions the "arms race" in a welcome moment of negativity. But Williams has progressed, as they say, from Thom Bell's pop romanticism to George Duke's cosmic idealism, and these fusion guys have never understood about songs. B