STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN

Born: Paducah, Kentucky, 21 November 1962

Genre: Christian Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Speechless (1999)

Steven Curtis Chapman's songs profile his professed Christian beliefs and he combines that testament with the energy of rock music. One has to listen hard to discern the difference between Chapman and the grassroots rock of Bryan Adams or the ballads of Michael Bolton; only the songs' religious themes reveal that Chapman's music is not mainstream radio fare. His last album went beyond devotion to a higher deity and chronicled his views on relationships through the filter of his own longstanding marriage.

Chapman grew up in western Kentucky in the town of Paducah. His father, once an aspiring country-western songwriter, went on to own a music store and influenced Chapman to play several instruments. Guitar and piano were the two that caught most of his interest. After high school, Chapman enrolled in the premed program at Indiana's Anderson College, but dropped out to pursue music full time in Nashville. Once there, he performed at the Grand Ole Opry—a dream that his father held for years. Chapman also had some success as a songwriter and drew the interest of several record labels.

Despite his father's wishes to the contrary, Chapman signed with a Christian music label, Sparrow. His first album, First Hand (1987), displayed Chapman's ability to write and perform appealing rock music with a Christian message. His subsequent recordings built on that success and enabled Chapman to become a repeated winner at the Dove Awards, Gospel Music's most prestigious award show. After more than fifteen years in the Christian rock genre, Chapman has far outdistanced any other performer by winning forty-seven Dove Awards. He has also garnered four Grammy Awards, each for Best Contemporary Gospel Album with For the Sake of the Call (1990), The Great Adventure (1992), The Live Adventure (1993), and Speechless (1999).

After a one-year hiatus for personal introspection, Chapman recorded Speechless as a response to the death of a close friend's eight-year-old daughter and the nationally spotlighted school shooting in his high school alma mater, Heath High School in Paducah. The album features 1980s-sounding hard rock with funky and driving rhythms mixed with Chapman's slightly raspy vocals. The snappy lyrics sound especially contemporary as they glorify a Christian higher power. Chapman also used inspiration from the album to co-author a book with pastor and friend, Scotty Smith, Speechless: In Awe of the Power of God's Disruptive Grace, which dealt with giving a message of hope to people who suffer tragic occurrences in their lives.

Chapman built on the success of Speechless with a similar effort, Declaration, featuring the rocker "Live Out Loud." The song became another number one hit single on the contemporary Christian charts to help Chapman take his place as the king of Christian music with thirty number one hits throughout his career. His signature song, "I Will Be Here," an ode of faithfulness to his wife, Mary Beth, has become a staple wedding song for couples all over the world. Chapman contributed "I Will Not Go Quietly" for the soundtrack to The Apostle (1998), and also recorded "Soldier" (changed from an earlier title "When You Are a Soldier") for the soundtrack to When We Were Soldiers (2002).

Chapman flirted nearer to pop mainstream with All About Love (2003). The album, his thirteenth studio release, is inspired by his marriage of seventeen years and explores the various aspects of love and relationships. Having sold more than 5 million albums in the Christian marketplace, there is little question that Chapman could have achieved comparable results in rock's mainstream markets had he chosen to follow that path.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

First Hand (Sparrow, 1987); Real Life Conversations (Sparrow, 1988); More to This Life (Sparrow, 1989); Great Adventure (Sparrow, 1992); Live Adventure (Sparrow, 1993); Heaven in the Real World (Sparrow, 1994); Signs of Life (Sparrow, 1996); Speechless (Sparrow, 1999); Declaration (Sparrow, 2001); All About Love (Sparrow, 2003). Soundtracks: : The Apostle (Rising Tide, 1998); When We Were Soldiers (Sparrow, 2002).

donald lowe