The Heavens Are Telling

The Heavens Are Telling is an album by multiple Grammy- and Stellar- award winning gospel singer Karen Clark Sheard, released on November 4, 2003. The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard Top Gospel Charts, #11 on the Billboard Top Christian Charts, #44 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Charts, and #188 on the Billboard Top 200. Though the last release performed well on the charts, the slick contemporary R&B production was not openly-embraced by Sheard's core audience of traditional gospel music listeners. This release returns to the formula of her hugely successful, well-received, and Grammy-nominated debut Finally Karen, by offering half of the album as a collection of live tracks, and half as a collection of upbeat studio productions. Radio edits of the live tracks "We Acknowledge You" and "We Are Not Ashamed" served as the album's lead singles. Leaning more toward embracing a contemporary worship audience, Karen covers two previously popularized songs penned by Israel Houghton and Martha Munizzi. In a nod to the mainstream R&B audience that the previous album's style catered to, Karen brings her daughter Kierra in on a gospelized live cover of Jill Scott's signature song "He Loves Me". It is also on this song that Clark Sheard first committs to recording the self-echoing ad-libs that have become her signature as of late.