“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.”
—Matthew 5:14
I don’t look over my shoulder enough and realize how far I’ve come, how God’s provided for me in every situation. I sometimes lose sight of His blessings.
It’s easy to keep looking down the road at what we hope will come and miss the beauty and joy of this moment right now.
I was definitely in the moment now at PTL. Singing with CeCe for the first time on The PTL Show as a featured duo was something that never crossed my mind. It just materialized. The exhilaration told me I was in the right place, but so much was unknown.
Our situation escalated when Jim had the insane idea that we sing a popular song from a movie. It was risky, but it was the single decision that launched CeCe and me into a place we had only dreamed about.
When I think back on that opportunity, I’m thankful for my faith and the strength it gave me to raise my voice.
Sometimes we can say such a thing and it can ring hollow, or we just say it to fill in a conversation. But when I say my faith gave me strength, I mean that in a very real sense. My faith was something instilled in me by my family.
And whenever I needed encouragement or a kick in the rear, my family was always there to give it to me. And not just my parents. My crazy siblings also supported me. We supported one another. That’s what faith looks like.
A strong faith isn’t just this thing out there floating around in the air. It’s tangible. It manifests itself in real people and real help given by those real people, and real words of support and real actions of comfort. In the New Testament book of James, the writer says, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17).
Faith is believing, and then acting like what you believe is so.
When you actually break down the words of a cliché like “my faith strengthens me,” you realize that it means that people who believe like you, who love you, people who want to see the best for you, actually did something real to help and push you. You realize that when you see faith pour out of those people whom you love, you are seeing the seeds of humility poured out.
Because how beautiful is it to see others love you in such a way?
How beautiful to realize that the strength you receive in order to reach a goal or dream comes from other people. A special indebtedness remains. Not an indebtedness that feels heavy, but something that is light and motivates you to make everyone proud.
When Jim got this crazy idea for CeCe and me to perform this song, we knew it was risky. But at the same time, it felt like the push I needed to get out there in a place and situation I had no control over and let God show me what He had in store.
After we finally got our footing on the show, our time and involvement there felt good, given how odd things felt when we first arrived.
We were getting paid for our performances, and all was good. I was, in many respects, living the dream. I was doing what Mom and Dad and Marvin and Ronald said I should do. They had told me to wait, and it had been so hard. But so worth it. Jim came to the PTL Singers rehearsal and asked Howard, the musical director, if he knew the song from An Officer and a Gentleman.
“What is that?” I wondered. “Oh no, that’s not a movie, is it? Those things are evil. They are secular.”
The song to which Jim was referring was “Up Where We Belong,” which was sung by the rock and blues singer Joe Cocker. The lyrics, well, let’s just say they lend themselves to being bent toward Christian themes, as he sings about love lifting us up so we can be “far from the world below.”
Although Jim wanted us to sing a Christianized version of the song, this was our ticket to hell. That was the call we were going to get from Mom and Dad when they watched us sing it on the show. That call never came, but the thought of receiving such a call was in my mind.
Our upbringing, as solid as it was, was rooted in legalistic Christianity. Remember, when my dad stopped singing for his quartet, he did so because when you started attending a holiness church, it was understood that your life reflected it. You didn’t gamble, or smoke, or drink, or run around clubs, or sleep around, or listen to worldly music. No—you were a church man or woman now. And it had to show. Those same rules, manifested in different ways, hung around when we grew up. The tension of being asked to sing this worldly song was countered by a voice in the back of my head, which sounded a lot like Dad. It was enough to drive a person insane. It was hard to let go of some of those rules, walk outside our old boundary lines, and do something I knew might be looked at with judgment from family and friends back home.
So, even though CeCe and I didn’t know the song, we agreed to sing it live on the show. They changed some of the lyrics to make them more Christian.
I thought we’d sing it and that would be it. But after we sang it, everyone went crazy. The response was immense and totally unexpected. Singing that song was our turning point.
Shortly thereafter, Jim Bakker started his own record label for PTL. The natural next step was for CeCe and me to record. My brother Daniel Winans, my sister-in-law Vickie Winans, and a good friend, Marvie Wright, came to Charlotte to sing on our record. Bill Maxwell, who had produced Andraé Crouch, produced the record.
I’d been around Bill when he worked with Marvin and my brothers. He was such a kindhearted gentleman. He always called me Benjamin. We were so blessed to be able to work with him on that first album.
CeCe and I recorded our debut record in a small studio. I received all the affirmation that I needed during the recording process. When the producers smiled at me through the window, I got a sense that yeah, this was my future. I’d been looking through that soundproof glass my whole life. And that view, through the glass, was the future I wanted. It was a dream I had long before coming to PTL, and it was miraculous to see it come true. I remember holding our album in my hands for the first time. What a surreal feeling.
But with the good, there will be bad. And you must learn to deal with both. Of the other PTL Singers who weren’t getting record deals, some were supportive, but I was a little suspicious of that support. They wanted to be part of our success without doing anything. We were strongly encouraged to remember that everyone at PTL—especially Jim—was a part of our record deal, even though CeCe and I were the only ones singing on it. Those feelings were due to the weird tension CeCe and I constantly lived in. I knew Jim was behind us—without a doubt. But when some of your closest friends find success, it’s common to want to be related to that. So I chalked up the tension to that. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel it.
I knew that the record was our success, but we knew how to talk about it around the other PTL cast members and producers.
Our solution?
Gratitude.
Dad would have been proud.
We showed nothing but gratitude. All the while, we had a big secret in our back pockets: we wanted to leave PTL. The successful record revealed to us that our musical careers had other places to go. I didn’t want to stay in Pineville my whole life. We were thankful. But no one could deny that we didn’t exactly fit the mold at PTL.
PTL had reached outside its own boundaries in hiring us. Our diversity and enthusiasm may have helped PTL soar beyond its own expectations, but we knew that we needed to go beyond it. There were bigger things in our future.
When it was time for CeCe and me to promote our record, one stop was back home in Detroit. The atmosphere was electric in the theater when we performed in front of the people of our hometown. I didn’t feel any of that awkwardness that I had tried so hard to shake in Pineville. It still crept up on me during some of the live PTL shows. But singing in Detroit was different. It felt right. It made me feel only more convinced that CeCe and I needed to leave.
But even though stepping onto a Detroit stage felt so comfortable, we were worried about Mom and Dad’s reaction to our music. They had raised us singing a different kind of Gospel than we learned to sing at PTL. Many of the songs on our record had been in the secular market the first time that they were recorded. CeCe and I were singing about the Lord, though. We thought of our music as worship, and we sang it in praise of God. And that came through. We shouldn’t have been worried about Mom. She absolutely loved our music, and Dad did too. Maybe Mom and Dad were able to hear “the Devil’s music” differently when their son and daughter were singing it.
I knew that the other PTL Singers talked about us negatively while we were gone, the way that they had since we had gotten there. But I think that CeCe and I had started to win over some of the cast members. There was some dissension among the ranks, with some of the singers calling us proud and others calling those singers prejudiced. It was definitely time to make our exit. We didn’t want our presence to sow discord in a place we weren’t even going to stay.
We also knew that Jim and Tammy were clinging to us a little too tightly. It’s that age-old problem. Someone starts thinking they might leave a place, and then the other people there cling to them too tightly. And all the clinging convinces the person that they have to get out—now. We walked back into that atmosphere not yet ready to tell Jim and Tammy that we were going to leave PTL and just jumped back into the routine of being two of the PTL Singers.
* * *
Things were changing, and I noticed some dissonance in our relationship with Jim. Jim was overjoyed at the continued success of PTL. He had his hotels and convention centers, and he had us. But he seemed to place much more value on our PTL success than on our record deal, which I suppose is natural when you run a business that happens to be a cable channel. We were interested in pursuing our record, but Jim didn’t connect the dots very well. Whenever we tried to approach him about the path of our careers, he just kept telling us that he would continue to make us stars. And he truly wanted to—this we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. But it’s hard to balance your love and loyalty to a person while making a business decision about continuing to perform on the show. And that’s what CeCe and I were attempting to do. We wanted to keep our relationship solid with Jim and Tammy, but we also wanted to do what was right for us, for our careers.
Life is chock-full of decisions like these. Knowing that doesn’t make them any easier to make. But gaining the wisdom to deal with them begins with this kind of knowledge—that they’re there and they’re difficult. Somehow there’s a settledness you feel when you know the decision is a hard one and there’s no way but the hard way. Sometimes, you have to do what’s right for you and your family and hope that the person across from you understands and continues to love you as a friend. That’s what I was hoping for with Jim and Tammy.
CeCe and I, however, kept talking about these disconnects. Maybe CeCe and I were starting to understand that we were headed in different paths too. She loved to sing, but she didn’t know if she wanted to make a whole career out of it. She knew exactly what I wanted, though. I wanted a career in music; I wanted to sing on big stages. In other words, I wanted the spotlight. I wanted to be a star.
* * *
The record, Lord Lift Us Up, was nominated for a Grammy. Our first nomination! I was twenty-one years old; CeCe was nineteen. The excitement, though, was short-lived. We were living our dream, but we didn’t have our family’s full support. Things in our family had been predetermined. We were to be part of the Winans Part Two. CeCe and I talked about our current situation with all the dreamy-eyed wonder you’d expect. But we knew things did not sit right with our family. As tight as our family was, that was a major concern.
Yet we still had to take advantage of the opportunity laid before us. We learned quickly that things don’t always just slide right into place as you’d expect them to. With growth comes tension. Success brings good, but it also carries a weight. Starting with that first record with Bill, we began to feel the weight.
There was already a plan for me and for CeCe. We came from a family of singers. And the PTL Network was just a beginning. Once we had that experience under our belt, the idea held by my family members was that CeCe and I would return to Detroit and sing with the family.
Even before we left Detroit, we were already singing with them. So when we told the family about the opportunity for CeCe and me to record together as a duet, there were raised eyebrows.
Dad felt we had betrayed the original plan and we’d set out on our own, though that feeling eventually passed. Despite the unmet expectations at first, we always knew the family would support us. Well, now we know. Back then, it wasn’t so clear. We were just overjoyed and amazed at our success off this one song. And we now had the chance to cut a record with Bill Maxwell, which was a dream come true.
We had to live in the tension of knowing that we’d hurt some family and the awesome reality of new opportunity.
We continued to sing for the show, but the record also needed to be supported. So we did the show during the week, and on the weekends, we sang at different churches and sometimes other venues. It was hard. We sang at more than three churches or venues on weekends, and Monday morning, we had to sound rested and be ready for whatever was on our schedule at PTL. But in addition to the grind of PTL and the new opportunities to sing out, other obstacles arose. One was learning how to connect with audiences.
CeCe and I didn’t know how to do that. And to compound matters, CeCe is naturally shy. When it came time to speak from the stage in between songs or to welcome everybody, it was difficult for her.
Me, on the other hand? I wasn’t a natural, but I had a very good teacher when it came to stage presence: Marvin. Marvin never worried about what people said or thought of him. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was the king of allowing yourself to relax and giving yourself permission to fail. That’s how he was.
My dad was not good at remembering people’s names at church, work, or play. Let’s say Dad walked around church on a Sunday morning. Everyone was excited, all dressed up and milling around, getting their seats. And there came Robert. Dad would see Robert walking down the aisle, walk up to greet him, and say, “Hey, George, how are you? How are the kids?” Robert, whom my father has known for years, would look at him as though he were crazy, hurt by the fact that Dad didn’t know his name, and walk away muttering to himself, “Oh my Lord, Dad Winans still does not remember my name.”
But Dad did not care. He was unafraid to get someone’s name wrong. People actually loved him for that. And I suppose some of that rubbed off on Marvin and me, or at least I’d like to think I learned from them.
I remember one night we were singing in Kansas City, and I said something like, “It’s so good to be in Chicago tonight.” CeCe whispered to me, “BeBe, we are in Kansas.”
“Oh, OK,” I replied. Followed by, “Good evening, Kansas!” And I’d just keep going on with the show. That was not an uncommon mistake for me. I’d flub, and roll with it, laugh at myself, and then sing my heart out.
We had to learn how to connect with audiences. How to relax. How to be ourselves. How to deal with the grind of performing and then working for the PTL Network.
There was no set path or guidebook for us to be able to do this well. And we probably didn’t, but sometimes you just have to give it your best and allow yourself permission to learn as you go, to grow, and mold yourself into the best version of you.
Monday through Friday, we sang for The PTL Club, and that responsibility required us to rehearse. And not only the songs. We also had to rehearse singing in front of a camera, which was much different than singing in front of a live audience.
Part of that training required us to perform in a small room with a camera and a cameraman. And the camera didn’t stay still. The cameramen moved up into our faces, and we had to learn to ignore the movement and keep our focus on the song and connecting with the audience on the other side of the camera.
Our instructors taught us to focus on nothing but the camera. You have to envision the camera like a human being. It’s another human being standing in front of you, watching you, and even though it’s a machine, you have to learn to show emotion and connect with it. It basically taught us how to present a song and helped us get over any lingering fear of performing.
You can always tell when someone feels comfortable and knows how to connect through the camera, and I am thankful for that training. It really opened my eyes to a world within the world of entertainment I’d not known or experienced.
But all this talk about focus and performing reminds me of one of our live shows in which we all were challenged to stay focused. While some of us had to really concentrate, others apparently learned how to focus a little too well. Once we were singing with the ensemble on the show. And as we performed, a huge black fly flew all around us the entire time. That fly was so annoying!
But we had to remember our training. Keep singing. Focus on the camera. Nothing else matters. No matter what happens, just finish the song. Be professional!
Well, one of the women in our ensemble might have been a little too professional.
About halfway through the song, some of us noticed the fly was gone, and it wasn’t until the song had ended and we were off the air that we found out the fate of the ugly big black fly.
She allowed that gross, big insect to fly right into her mouth!
I’m not lying.
She swallowed the monster bug and kept singing. She stayed focused. Remained professional!