Past Internet Articles About Amy Grant

"Amy does a lot for people with kindness and amazing grace. I see her parents here and what she became was a daughter with integrity, good faith and all those good qualities she learned from her family." -- Hubby Vince Gill

An emotional Amy thanked all her fans for being out there at 6 in the morning! "I see all my family, co-workers and friends and I have to say, nothing happens alone. Life is like a massive vessel, you don't sail alone and sometimes I felt like the naked lady on the front of the ship with my tits to the wind! Its been an exciting ride! Thank you." -- Amy Grant

Conventional wisdom has it that Amy Grant put Contemporary Christian music on the map. She surely did that, achieving such breakthroughs as being the first Contemporary Christian artist to have a platinum record, the first to hit #1 pop and the first to perform at the Grammys. Yet perhaps her greatest accomplishment was to open the door for a flood of other artists in pop as well as rock to sing about faith and soul and family and still grasp stardom. With that, her legacy as one of the most influential artists of the past couple of decades is assured.

Nearly 30 years ago Grant began embracing fans with a heartfelt singer-songwriter style mixing elements of pop, folk and country. Contemporary Christian music�s first major crossover success, she has to date earned three multi-platinum albums, six other platinum albums and four more gold albums; scored 10 Top 40 pop singles and 17 Top 40 Adult Contemporary tracks as well as a string of Contemporary Christian chart-toppers, and won six Grammy Awards plus numerous Dove Awards.

Born in Augusta, Georgia in 1960 during the residency of her doctor father, Grant was still a baby when her family moved back to its native Nashville. Her unlikely rise to icon status was sparked while she was working part-time sweeping floors and demagnetizing tapes in a Nashville studio. She had been singing in church and school for years and a friend, producer Brown Bannister, allowed her to use the studio to duplicate a tape of her original songs that she wanted to give to her family. But a Word Records producer heard the tape and played it over the phone for company executives. The 15-year-old was signed almost immediately.

Her self-titled 1977 debut album introduced a fresh-faced young woman with a fresh voice. A series of albums followed, including 1979�s Father�s Eyes which eventually went gold. That same year her platinum Age To Age album won Grant her first Dove Awards, including Contemporary Album of the Year and Artist of the Year, plus an album Grammy for Best Gospel Performance. She won another Grammy, Best Female Gospel Performance, for the title track of the 1983 EP Ageless Medley.

Also that year, the platinum A Christmas Album, the first of her enormously popular holiday efforts, introduced her now classic �Tennessee Christmas.� Age To Age�s proper follow-up, Straight Ahead (1984), went gold and won a Grammy for �Angels,� which she co-wrote and also performed on the Grammy broadcast.

Though Contemporary Christian music was clearly a growing force in the mid-�80s, no artist had yet crossed over to mainstream success. Then came Grant�s 1985 album Unguarded. Cracking the pop Top 40, earning platinum and winning a Grammy, Unguarded was a challenge within her gospel audience for its secular nature but it proved a watershed for the genre. The track �Find A Way� reached both Top 30 pop and Top 10 Adult Contemporary and its video even aired on MTV. �Everywhere I Go� peaked in the AC Top 30 and �Stay For Awhile� AC Top 20. The next year she went to #1 thanks to a duet with Peter Cetera, �The Next Time I Fall� (#1 pop/#1 AC), from his Solitude/Solitaire album. A �best of� retrospective, The Collection, was issued in 1987 and went platinum.

Now signed to major label A&M Records, another sign of her crossover appeal, her platinum 1988 album Lead Me On won the fifth of her Grammys and spun off the Top 40 AC hit �Saved By Love.� Two years later, she welcomed daughter Gloria Mills, the inspiration for what was to become her signature song, �Baby Baby.� 1991�s Heart In Motion, her first Top 10 pop album and at five times platinum her biggest seller, brought together �Baby Baby� (#1 pop/#1 AC), �Every Heartbeat� (#2 pop/#2 AC), �That�s What Love Is For� (#7 pop/#1 AC), �Good For Me� (#8 pop/#4 AC) and �I Will Remember You� (#20 pop/#2 AC). The first Contemporary Christian song to reach #1 on Billboard�s pop chart, �Baby Baby� boasted a video that celebrated the romantic over the motherly translation of the tune.

With the subsequent enormous success of Home For Christmas (1992)--#2 pop and triple platinum--Grant joined with her hometown Nashville Symphony to launch what has since become an annual tradition--�Amy Grant�s Tennessee Christmas,� a live concert tour. To date, the events have raised millions of dollars for the several charities supported by Grant.

Grant�s double platinum, Top 20 House Of Love (1994) yielded �Lucky One� (#18 pop/#2 AC), the Vince Gill duet �House Of Love� (#37 pop/#5 AC) and a cover of Joni Mitchell�s �Big Yellow Taxi� (#18 AC). Her cover of 10cc�s �The Things We Do For Love� (#24 AC) appeared on the soundtrack to Mr. Wrong (1996).

�Takes A Little Time� (#21 pop/#4 AC), �Like I Love You� (#10 AC) and �I Will Be Your Friend� (#27 AC) were heard on 1997�s gold, Top 10 Behind The Eyes.

Her third holiday disc, A Christmas To Remember (1999), took home gold and a pop Top 40 ranking boosted by her prime-time holiday television special.

2002�s Legacy�Hymns & Faith, a collection of favorite hymns and newly penned tunes, was produced by long-time friend/producer Bannister and Gill. Her first album of completely new material in six years, 2003�s Simple Things returned her to the pop Top 40 and its title track returned her to the Top 40 AC chart as well. Her first compilation to span her pop career, Greatest Hits 1986-2004, followed.

Amy Grant has done more than simply be successful in two different music worlds; in her music, in fact thanks to her music, she has brought those two worlds together.

Grant�s next album is titled Time Again�Amy Grant Live which will be released on September 26, 2006.