James Attlee talked to singer VANESSA BELL ARMSTRONG, thought by some to be the greatest female singer currently singing out-and-out gospel.

"The church is still kind of scared of the contemporary (gospel music). They think its too much of the world - but they're so narrow-minded. Most of the time they're caught up in their own thing - they're so old school, they don't know about the generation of today. I consider myself a young adult, and I like new things. I love the older, but I like to put a little of the old and the new together and make it different, you know what I'm saying? I believe that by me being chosen by God, as probably quite a few other artists were, God is with me in singing this contemporary gospel, as long as I don't forget my purpose, my motive, who I'm singing about- am I trying to reach souls? If I'm trying to reach souls, I don't see nothing wrong with it. God don't want nothing that's old and decrepit all the time, otherwise He wouldn't have created. He's a creative man - a creative Spirit. You think He's that much of a creator He don't want us to ever try to create anything? I believe He just smiles when he sees somebody come up with a new idea of singing or playing something, or a new idea of bringing it across to His people." This belief that she's in God's will has helped sustain Vanessa through some criticism that she admits has been hurtful, coming as it does from those who she naturally looks to for support and prayer. But, as she points out, every gospel singer through Mahalia Jackson right back to Tommy Dorsey has taken flak for making innovations. I said that some of the strength of feeling may be generated by the way many of the best gospel singers seem to end up going over to the commercial market - it's happened in Britain as well as America. We haven't "lost" an Aretha or a Sam Cooke, but who remembers where Mica Paris or Paul Johnson got started?

"You know why though? It's because of the Church - we don't support our artists. It's a shame that our artists have to leave and go secular in order to live. If they're scared that they're losing most of their artists to secular then they ought to do something about it and come on and support the ones that want to stay in gospel. If you're that scared, support us - stop talking about us - pray for us and support us, and stand behind what we're doing. As long as we keep God before - as long as I don't go out singing 'baby, baby, baby' - support me and my contemporary music, because I'm trying to win your son or daughter." Any artist signed to a major label is sooner or later going to have to come to terms with the medium of video gospel singers included. Having seen the video for 'So Strong', I felt that in their efforts to sell gospel music to a wider (white) audience, the people at Jive had pushed the 'acceptable' face of black gospel - that is, that gospel music is merely a part of black culture, black solidarity. The thinking seems to be that if they can filter out the supernatural and leave in the politics and the passion, they're on to a winner. After all, right-thinking whites the world over joined the black people in calling for the release of Nelson Mandela - but how many of them accept that they need to be born again?

For the millions of white music fans who love black music and readily admit that many of the greatest voices have emerged from the black church, it is the religious element in gospel that sticks in the throat. But once, in an attempt to reach a wider audience, you filter out the very thing that gives gospel its impetus and uniqueness, all you are left with, is second-rate soul music.

Vanessa declared herself well pleased with the video and the crowd's response to it at her London concert. I asked about the way the video cut from the black church to black demonstrators in Soweto: what point was it trying to make?

"I think he's trying to show you that it's the church, us the people, that's got to pray for all these things that are happening in Southern Africa, or to the black people or whatever...We had problems trying to get over here. I don't know if they're prejudiced or what- but we've never felt this kind before, it's different. We sat in immigration for six hours; my sister

Charlene was searched. All we were trying to do was get over here and sing and tell you about Jesus. I was greatly disappointed, I was hurt - I was ready to turn around and go back - but all of my life we've been through struggles, the black people, so why can't I? I'm black, I can do it too, I'm going to get through it, I'm God's child and He put me out here to do this so I'm going to go through. And I'm sure that what I'm going through is nothing compared to what Martin Luther King went through for the struggle of black people."

In singing of physical as well as spiritual liberation, Vanessa stands in a tradition of gospel singers reaching back from recent artists like the Winans' with their song "Let My People Go", to the composers of the earliest spirituals, living under the appalling injustice of slavery. Whether or not she fully understands the more subtle manipulation of the modern market place remains to be seen. Meanwhile she is full of optimism, seeking to extend her acting career (she made her debut in a play called 'Don't Get God Started' last year) and dreaming of the day when she has her own gospel TV Show. Sometimes her words serve to remind us that 'prosperity gospel' preaching has penetrated the black Pentecostal as well as the white fundamentalist church in America.

"We are living for the man who has it all, so why can't we have a little piece of it? Why does the world have to be able to do everything, and they don't even serve him? I'm the King's kid - I should have the very best. I should have minks and furs and diamonds and TV shows and gold albums - and I'm striving to get it."

I'm not sure the gospel community in Britain could support an artist whose taste ran to minks and diamonds - spiritually or financially! However, quibbling aside - if you haven't yet discovered the voice of Vanessa Bell Armstrong, you have a treat in store. The latest album is excellent, well produced contemporary gospel. But if you want to hear the kind of singing that will send a shiver down your spine and have you shaking your head in disbelief, and in the face of which atheism seems a totally untenable position, go back to "Peace Be Still" and check out "My God Is Real", or "He Looked Beyond My Faults"...if you're a. singer, you'll be reaching for the pause button.