Faithful renditions

Among the current bumper cover-version crop, none are more eye- (or ear-) opening than those of Harry Connick Jr., David Ramirez, and Paul Stanley’s Soul Station.

Connick’s is called Alone With My Faith (Verve), and a more accurate title you won’t find. Not only does Connick play every instrument and sing every vocal part, but all 13 songs address his rekindled faith in Christ. “I never took it seriously,” he sings in the funkily off-kilter “Look Who I Found,” “but you move mysteriously, Lord.” (A few verses later, he quotes John 14:6.)

The song is one of the album’s six originals, each of which slinks with an exploratory soulfulness not unlike that of Stevie Wonder’s more purposeful meanderings. But it’s the intimately sung covers and the various Christian traditions from whence they hail that universalize Connick’s confessions.

There’s evangelical hymnody (“Amazing Grace,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “How Great Thou Art”); Catholic hymnody, both pre–Vatican II (“Panis Angelicus”) and post– (“Be Not Afraid”); even Bill and Gloria Gaither’s “Because He Lives.”

“Because He Lives” also figures in the EP Backslider (Sweetworld) by the Austin roots-rocker David Ramirez. (Who’d have thought that in 2021 the Gaithers would be so hip?) On his Facebook page, Ramirez describes the mostly hymns collection as his “most nostalgic project to date.” It’s also his most low-key, providing stark contrast to his sonically detailed (and, despite titles such as “Hallelujah, Love Is Real” and “Heaven,” thoroughly secular) 2020 long player, My Love Is a Hurricane.

The details this time are limited mainly to Ramirez’s acoustic guitar, his co-producer Brian Douglas Phillips’ organ, piano, pedal steel, and bass, and Ramirez’s honey-and-gravel baritone voice. Together, they suffuse selections such as “Be Thou My Vision,” “It Is Well With My Soul,” “Come Thou Fount,” and “I Surrender All” with a quiet intensity befitting dark nights of the soul.

“Before I ever picked up an instrument,” Ramirez’s Facebook post continues, “these tunes were a massive part of my life. Though, currently, my spirituality and faith don’t look anything like they did back then, these songs are from my childhood and upbringing and, therefore, will always hold a sacred place in my heart.”

Paul Stanley’s Soul Station’s Now and Then (UMe) contains no hymns. But, coming from the lead singer of KISS, its nine faithfully rendered classic-R&B covers and five compatible originals feel like the return of a prodigal son. What’s most remarkable is the playing of the 10-member Soul Station orchestra, followed closely by Stanley’s voice, which has somehow managed to survive decades’ worth of hard-rock concertizing.

Recommendations for Volume 2: Billy Ocean’s “Love Really Hurts Without You,” Lenny Williams’ “Ten Ways of Loving You,” and—if only to give the background vocalists a chance to shine—the Flirtations’ resplendent “Nothing but a Heartache.”