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You gotta listen to the music.

I pre-judged A Woman's Touch by Thelma Houston. Houston’s major claim to fame is Don’t Leave Me This Way, a disco-tinged cover of a Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes tune, which was a hit for her twice, once in 1977 and again in the mid-1990s. She has some under appreciated acting gigs and recorded sporadically. I really didn’t expect much from A Woman's Touch, a conceptual collection of covers of hit songs recorded by men. To put it bluntly, I got knocked on my ass.

The genre that informs A Woman's Touch is not disco so much as gospel, with Houston soloing and a female chorus behind her, engaging more often than not in a call-and-response. Just about every one of the tracks on A Woman's Touch is worth the price of admission all by itself, but let’s talk about a couple of them. Exhibit One: Love and Happiness. Originally recorded and co-written by the Rev. Al Green, this is perhaps one of Green’s greatest songs in a pantheon full of them. Houston takes this song, and makes it her own. Will her version make you forget Rev. Green’s? No. However, you won’t hear Rev. Green in the background while you listen to Houston’s take on it, her voice soaring ever upward over a searing arrangement. Exhibit Two: Ain’t That Peculiar. Houston’s version of this venerable tune WILL make you forget Marvin Gaye’s immortal version. Houston slows it down, turning the composition from a jumpy R & B tune into a wistful ballad. Exhibit Three: Brand New Day. Houston’s soulful take on this great composition raises it, for the first time, to it’s full potential. Exhibit Four: Please Send Me Someone To Love. This song has been covered, and deservedly so, by a multitude of…well, you get the idea. If there’s a low point on A Woman's Touch, it is ironically on Sylvester’s “Dance (Disco Heat)” which, when compared to the rest of the songs collected here, sounds out of place, a less than worthy showplace for Houston’s talent.

A Woman's Touch, in whole, is a magnificent piece of work, one that indicates that in her fourth decade of making music Houston seems to just warming up. I’ll take a lot more of that fire. Highly recommended.