Sunday, October 19, 2014

Grammy-winning artist Amy Grant Grateful and Blessed for Life in Music

American singer-songwriter Amy Grant is perhaps best known for performing Christian music, gaining fame in the 1980s with hits such as “Father’s Eyes,” “El-Shaddai,” and “Angels.” Grant later found success in mainstream pop music as well, releasing the 5x platinum album “Heart in Motion” in 1991, which yielded the hits “Baby, Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” and “I Will Remember You.” Grant has collaborated and recorded with numerous well-known artists, including fellow Christian singer-songwriter and friend Michael W. Smith. She remains the best-selling contemporary Christian music singer ever, having sold over 30 million records worldwide.

 
Born in Augusta, Georgia, the Nashville resident grew up loving everything that was on the radio and was constantly sneaking her older sisters’ records out of their room and into hers. She loved Joni Mitchell, Carole King, James Taylor, the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley. “Everything was new then,” Grant said. “Pop music was totally unexplored, and then there was the British invasion with the Beatles, and also Blood, Sweat and Tears.”

Recently, Grant and her husband, country singer-songwriter Vince Gill, were going through their LP collection and listened to one of Blood, Sweat and Tears’ early records. She hadn’t realized that the record was produced by James William Guercio, who owned Caribou Ranch, a recording studio near Nederland, Colorado that was heavily damaged by a fire and shut down in March 1985. Many famous artists had recorded at the studio, including the jazz-rock group Chicago, which recorded five albums there in the 1970s.

In the fall of 1981, Grant recorded her first album at Caribou Ranch, “Age to Age,” which was released in the spring of 1982. Guercio, the former Chicago manager/producer, stopped in the studio while Grant was recording the gospel album. “I remember Jim coming into the studio, and he said, ‘this record is going to sell a million copies,’” she said. “And I hadn’t even done more than 25 percent of it. I said ‘you’re off your rocker.’” But the album did sell a million copies and became one of the fastest-selling Christian albums ever released. Featuring the single “El-Shaddai,” the album became certified platinum and was named Gospel Album of the 1980s by Billboard magazine. Grant would record three more albums at Caribou and was set to record a fifth album there the day the studio was destroyed.

In 1985, Grant released “Unguarded,” an album that surprised fans with its very mainstream sound. The hit single “Find a Way,” became the first non-Christmas Christian song to hit the Billboard Top 40 list, also reaching No. 7 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The album gave Grant more exposure and the music world began to take notice of her talents as a pop singer as well.

Ironically, one year later in 1986, Grant was visiting a college friend in Atlanta, when she got a phone call from a record producer whom she had met before, Michael Omartian. Omartian was producing a solo album for former Chicago lead singer and bassist Peter Cetera. Grant had never worked with Omartian before, but he asked her if she would do a song with Cetera. “Chicago was at the top of their game, and Peter, he was doing some solo work and I remember thinking, ‘Why did he call me?’” she said. “I was completely knocked sideways. I thought, ‘How in the world did I get invited to this party?’ I just said ok. I just couldn’t believe it.”

“The Next Time I Fall” was released from Cetera’s album “Solitude/Solitaire,” and the duet became a No. 1 hit in the fall of 1986. It was Grant’s first foray into the secular music field, after scoring several No. 1 singles in Contemporary Christian music previously. This eventually led Grant to change direction and crossover into pop music, and in the process, widening her fan base and making her a household name.

Throughout the 1990s, Grant continued her success in pop music, with the albums “Heart in Motion” (1991), featuring Grant’s second No. 1 hit “Baby, Baby,” “House of Love” (1994), and “Behind the Eyes” (1997). In 2002, Grant returned to her roots, releasing an album of hymns titled “Legacy…Hymns and Faith.”

In 2013, Grant released her first full-length album of all new material in 10 years, “How Mercy Looks from Here.” The album was inspired by a conversation Grant had with her mother just a couple months before she died in April 2011. Though her mother was suffering from dementia, her advice to her daughter to sing songs that mattered compelled Grant to do an album of songs where each one tells a different story. “I had songs that I had written years earlier, and I got to just sort of cherry-pick what I thought were the best things from the five or six years prior to that,” she said. “But I just feel like the history behind each of the songs mattered. I’ve had great response to the record.”

Whether recording gospel or pop albums, performing duets or singing solo, Grant feels truly blessed to have the success she’s had, and all of the people with whom she’s worked with who have made it all possible. “I guess it’s fair to say that I love making music, but I’ve never felt like I was steering my career,” she said. “I felt like I just sort of happily wound up in some really magical places.”

At 53, Grant feels she has had her run and she has loved every minute of it. But what gets her heart racing more than anything is knowing that it’s her turn to lift up the people coming after her. In the same way that she applied her creativity to making music, Grant is just trying to open up her mind and look at the resources that she has.

“My life and especially my recording career, has been so impacted by people who let me dream and supported those dreams,” Grant said. “And I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but what I look forward to the most is pouring my energy into the dreams of artists coming after me. And all of that possibility is thrilling for me.”

As it does in music, Grant believes that nothing happens with anything in life unless you start talking about it, say it, and open yourself up for direction. “I guess that’s what I’m really anticipating most,” she said. “I want to give back and pour encouragement into young artists.”

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