Description
I’ll Lead You Home is the seventh studio album by the American singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Michael W. Smith, released on Reunion Records in August 1995. The album was recorded by Bryan Lenox, Craig Hansen, Jerry Jordan, Keith Compton, and Marc Moreau at ten different studios – mostly located in Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee – with Patrick Leonard producing.
According to the September 9, 1995 issue of Billboard Magazine, “‘I’ll Lead You Home’, the new Reunion album by Michael W. Smith, debuts this week on The Billboard 200 at No. 16. The entry was fueled exclusively by sales of 51,500 units in Christian bookstores, according to SoundScan. The SoundScan point-of-sale data from some 250 Christian bookstores is included this week for the first time in The Billboard 200 and other key Billboard charts. In April Billboard began using SoundScan data in the Top Contemporary Christian albums chart (Billboard, April 15).” The album was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in November 1995 and Platinum (one million copies sold) in April 2004.
Smith’s highly anticipated follow-up to 1992’s ‘Change Your World‘ is a wonderfully expansive project that should satiate the legion of contemporary Christian fans who have followed him over the last decade, yet still appeal to the mainstream audience he successfully tapped on his last outing with such pop hits as «Place In This World». Highlights include the infectious, uptempo «A Little Stronger Everyday», intimate, stirring ballad «Straight To The Heart», and a beautiful rendition of the Lord’s Prayer called «As It Is In Heaven». Though much of the lyrical content is overtly spiritual, the textured pop melodies should draw in a wide audience. This is Smith’s best work yet. [Reviews & Previews – Spotlight, Billboard Magazine, September 9, 1995]
In my book this is the CCM star’s most mature recording. Gone is his dalliance with the glittering pop prizes. Themes here are of more important things. Here is an album that resonates with spiritual reality, an honest confessional of failure as well as hope in a mighty Saviour. The poignancy of gentle reflective ballads like «Straight To Your Heart» and the trilogy «The Other Side Of Me»/«Breathe In Me»/«Angels Unawares» are achingly moving while a tremulous new musical setting of the Lord’s Prayer «As It Is In Heaven» is passionately heartfelt. But this isn’t an album solely of understated, musical introspection. The opener «Cry For Love» with its ricocheting rhythm and its plaintive chorus and a finale which even includes a Black Ladysmith Mambazo-style backing chorus, and «Breakdown» where in between samples of a Martin Luther King sermon and some thunderous cross rhythms of programmed drums features Michael intoning the failures of secular America are both destined for mucho radio play. «Someday» has some delicious Dann Huff guitar work and a joyful duet with Susan Ashton, while elsewhere there’s a blistering black gospel whoop up of the old hymn «Crown Him With Many Crowns» and «Calling Heaven» has another programmed groove guaranteed to connect with today’s youth. A fine album which deserves every one of the million or so sales it will generate. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, October 1995]
[Bruce A. Brown, CCM, September 1995]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/ill-lead-you-home/304779889)
CD tracklist:
01. Cry For Love – 5:12
02. Breakdown – 5:27
03. As It Is In Heaven – 5:09
04. Straight To The Heart – 2:48
05. Someday – 3:52
06. I’ll Be Around – 4:45
07. I’ll Lead You Home – 5:23
08. Trilogy: The Other Side Of Me – 4:24
09. Trilogy: Breathe In Me – 3:55
10. Trilogy: Angels Unaware – 4:37
11. Calling Heaven – 4:54
12. A Little Stronger Everyday – 4:43
13. Crown Him With Many Crowns – 4:34
14. I’m Waiting For You – 3:12
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Reunion Records.
A full-page advertisement for Songwriter of the Year, Michael W. Smith, was featured in the July 1996 issue of CCM Magazine.
A full-page advertisement for Korg Trinity Music Workstation, feat. Michael W. Smith, was featured in the June and July 1996 issues of CCM Magazine.
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