Grant, Amy

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Grant, Amy

Grant, Amy, contemporary Christian music super-star who rode the momentum to chart-topping pop (b. Augusta, Ga. Nov. 25, 1960). Born in Ga., Grant spent some of her childhood in Houston, Tex. before moving to Term. Her father practiced radiology in Nashville. While attending an exclusive private school for girls, she picked up the guitar and began attending services at a nondenominational church not far from Nashville’s Music Row and the campus of Vanderbilt Univ. When she could not find any songs that appealed to her in her early teens, she began writing her own. She wrote and performed a Vespers service and the reaction was so positive she continued creating. This led to a job in a recording studio at 15, where she swept floors, bulk erased tapes, and cut demos. A producer working at the studio heard one of Grant’s demos and played it over the phone to people at the Christian record company Word Records. Word was impressed and signed the teenaged girl.

Grant released her eponymous debut at the age of18. Several more records followed, including two live recordings and Grant’s records started to attract attention outside of Christian rock circles. One reason was Grant herself. A vivacious twenty-something who wore leopard print jackets, tight pants, and bare feet while performing on the Grammy Awards, she certainly was attractive enough for pop stardom. She had a voice that drew comparisons to Olivia Newton John and Karen Carpenter. Her music was powered by synthesizers and big drum sounds.

Her breakthrough in the Christian market came with the release of Age to Age in 1982. The album sold half a million right off the bat, making it the first Christian album to achieve platinum sales. It won Grant her first Grammy, for best female Gospel Performance, Contemporary. A single release, “Ageless Medley” won the Grammy for Best Gospel Performance, Female in 1983 (it would find its way onto her 1986 Collection album). She continued to sell well in the Christian market; her album Straight Ahead in 1985 hit #133. The track “Angels” won Grant yet another Best Gospel Performance Female Grammy. Unguarded also came out in 1985, and rose to #35. At the same time, Grant made her first foray onto the (secular) Top 40 pop charts with the #29 song “Find A Way.” The album won yet another Best Gospel Performance Female, her fourth straight year of coming home with a Grammy.

By 1986, with a pop hit and several platinum albums behind her, Grant’s shows had all the trappings of Big Rock: smoke, lights, and a massive sound system. It took semi trucks to move her show from venue to venue. She also had friends in high places, like Chicago frontman Peter Cetera. His single “Glory of Love” had just topped the charts. She had cut a song with him for his Solitude/Solitaire album. That became his next single, “The Next Time I Fall” which zoomed to the top of the charts. While it helped jumpstart her pop career, it landed her in hot water with her core fans in the Christian market, who accused her of selling out. It was something she would hear every time she made noise in the pop arena. In an attempt to reestablish her core audience, her 1988 album Lead Me On cut back on the pop trappings, leaning on acoustic guitar. A downright somber album, it nonetheless rose to #71 and won Grant her fifth Grammy, once again for Best Gospel Performance Female.

Although Grant had already topped the pop charts in tandem with Cetera, she really hadn’t followed that up. In 1991, Grant made her major breakthrough to the pop market with Hearts in Motion. She cut a song “Baby Baby” in honor of her then-baby daughter, Millie. The tune reminded her of the fresh innocence of early Motown. Neither Word nor A&M heard the song, but she persevered and put it on the record. The tune topped both the pop and adult contemporary charts. She followed that up with “Every Heartbeat,” which rose to #2. “That’s What Love Is For” topped the adult contemporary charts and blasted to #7 on the pop charts. “Good for Me” reached #8. The final single from the album, “I Will Remember,” made it to #20. The album hit #10, sold quintuple platinum, and spent well over a year on the charts.

Grant followed this with her second holiday album. Home for Christmas rose to #2, scored platinum, and remained a recurrent seller during the holiday season. She followed this with several projects, like Music of the Spirit, a semi-classical, multi-artist album of sacred music. Finally, she turned her attention back to main-stream pop with House of Love in 1994. While not nearly as successful as Hearts in Motion, it did generate the #18 single “Lucky One” and the #37 duet with Vince Gill, who she met at a concert the previous year, on the title track. The album hit #13 and went platinum. However, after the first leg of her concert tour supporting the album, Grant had to cancel the rest of her dates because of a torn retina.

This lent a note of irony to the title of her next album, 1997’s Behind the Eyes. A more introspective, acoustic album, it was almost a more mature version of Lead Me On. Almost all of the songs were in the first person, and while the spirituality that infused all of her work bubbled through every song, none mentioned God. The album peaked during its first week of release at #8 and produced the hit “It Takes A Little Time,” While Grant has taken the time to do charity work, including a two-hour concert to kick off the children’s miracle network telethon in 1998, she spent the last years of the 1990s mostly dealing with her divorce from her hus-band of 16 years, Gary Chapman, host of the Nashville Network’s Country Music Today. For the holiday season of 1999, she released another Christmas album, A Christmas to Remember.

Discography

Amy Grant (1977); My Father’s Eyes (1979); Never Alone (1980); In Concert (live; 1981); Age to Age (1982); In Concert, Vol. 2 (live; 1982); A Christmas Album (1983); Straight Ahead (1984); Unguarded (1985); Lead Me On (1988); Heart in Motion (1991); Home for Christmas (1992); Creation (1993); Gingham Dog & Calico Cat (1993); House of Love (1994); Behind the Eyes (1997); A Christmas to Remember (1999).