One of the most recognizable and incomparable voices in gospel music, CeCe Winans has sold millions of albums during her 25-year music career. The charismatic singer has garnered eight Grammy Awards, twenty-one Dove Awards, eight gold and two platinum albums, a host of Top Ten R&B hits and a reputation as one of the friendliest people in the music industry.

The eighth of ten children, Winans was raised in Detroit with a strong church foundation. She sang her first church solo at the age of eight. She became a staff singer with Jim & Tammy Bakker's North Carolina-based PTL television ministry in 1982. Her brother BeBe tagged along as her chaperon and they ended up becoming a duo there and recorded their first million-seller "Lord Lift Us Up" in 1984 for PTL Records.

In 1987, BeBe & CeCe signed an unprecedented gospel-recording contract with Sparrow Records that allowed Capitol Records to promote BeBe & CeCe's music in the urban market. Over the next eight years, they enjoyed a dozen R&B chart smashes including "Lost Without You," "Heaven," and "It's Okay." Their tunes "I'll Take You There" and "Addictive Love" both reached #1 on the R&B charts.

Then, in 1995 the duo took what was meant to be a short break to record solo projects. However, after the release of CeCe's praise and worship CD Alone in His Presence, her career took her into a ministry direction that found her performing in more churches and ministry venues. On the side, CeCe's duet with Whitney Houston on a VH-1 Honors video of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and the Top Ten platinum smash "Count on Me" expanded her audience into the mainstream pop world.

In order to feed both her urban fans and her church audience, CeCe has often alternated praise and worship CD releases with more urban sets. She's recorded gold-selling worship projects such as Alabaster Box (1999) and Throne Room (2003) while also continuing to make pop-friendly CDs such as Everlasting Love (1998) and Purified (2005). Her latest solo effort, the Grammy-winning Thy Kingdom Come (2008) combines both elements.

Aside from singing, CeCe has shown her acting skills in TV sitcoms such as "Living Single"; hosted her own TV series "CeCe's Place" for the Odyssey cable channel; launched the Always Sisters, Forever Brothers youth conference; penned her autobiography, On A Positive Note (Pocket Books); and co-wrote the Throne Room (Thomas Nelson) worship journal and the devotional book for teenage girls, Always Sisters: Becoming the Princess You Were Created to Be (Howard Books).

BeBe & CeCe have put the final touches on their much-anticipated comeback CD – their first full project in 15 years - entitled Still. The smooth single "Close to You" quickly reached #1 on the gospel charts and is also rapidly climbing the Urban AC charts, demonstrating that CeCe Winans is as popular and in demand now as when she first started out two decades ago.