Adult Contemporary
Amy Grant
Word Records
CBN.com
– It was a warm September night in Fort Worth in 1978. A young singer/songwriter took the stage for her
first paid performance. She sang all the songs in her youthful repertoire and even tossed in a couple
Carole King compositions for good measure. Yet she still wanted to give the audience more for their
money. As she stood there pondering her next move, someone in the audience yelled, “Just sing them
again.”
So she did and so she has. For nearly 30 years Amy Grant’s songs have inspired her legion of fans and
defined her career. Needless to say, it’s rather poetic that she returned to Fort Worth and “sang them
again” for her latest collection, Time Again…Amy Grant Live, a project that takes the audience on a
musical trip down memory lane and reminds us all of the power of the songs, the purity of the message
and the incomparable talent of Amy Grant.
“It was the last Saturday in September and my record had just come out that spring during my senior
year,” Grant recalls of that first paid gig. “I remember that a lot of people were there and I was shocked
that that many people would come. There were 11 songs on the record. I got through those and threw in a
couple more. I thought ‘Oh gosh, those people paid seven dollars and I hardly did anything.’”
What the audience saw that night in that 17-year-old girl, and what fans have been responding to ever
since, is Grant’s desire to always give people more than they expect, to always share her heart in a
transparent way that dissolves the distance between the stage and the seats. It’s the only way she knows.
And it’s a quality that has served her so well over the years. Grant has sold more than 25 million albums
worldwide, won six Grammy Awards and 21 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards. She netted her
most recent Dove in April 2006 in the inspirational album of the year category for Rock of Ages…Hymns & Faith. She’s well known as the pioneering Christian singer whose success on mainstream radio opened
doors for other Christian artists. Her impact was recently celebrated with a star on the legendary Walk of
Fame in Hollywood, making Grant the only artist with roots in contemporary Christian music to receive
such an honor. (Other artists with Gospel roots to receive a star include Andrae Crouch and Al Green).
Time Again…Amy Grant Live was recorded for a CD and filmed for a DVD at Fort Worth’s Bass Hall, a
perfect venue in which to capture the intimate bond Amy has always forged with her audience. The CD
features such well-loved hits as “Lead Me On,” Stay For Awhile,” “Baby Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” and
a new studio version of “In A Little While,” which is being released as the project’s lead single.
The arrangement was inspired by a Tommy Sims performance. “One night in Nashville I was going to be
part of a songwriter in-the-round with Wayne Kirkpatrick, Gordon Kennedy and Tommy Sims,” recalls
Grant. “It was Tommy’s turn to sing and he said, ‘I didn’t write this song. Amy wrote this song with a
couple of friends and I’ve always loved it.’ Then he started singing ‘In a Little While’ and I loved the way
he did it. I went home and figured out the guitar chords as best I could and started doing it.”
Sims and Bannister co-produced the track. “Tommy’s version of the song is what really revived my
interest in it,” says Grant. “It was fun to go back and redo it.”
The songs on Time Again represent nearly 30 years of artistry and encompass a vast array of emotional
territory for both the artist and her audience. “They are all definitely snapshots,” says Grant. “They are a
journey and I can’t hear a song without thinking of so many layered experiences—the writing of it, the
recording of it, sometimes the making of the video was memorable. I remember being up on a clock tower
in New York City for a video shoot. I was watching the city at sunset. I spoke out loud to nobody but the
pigeons and said, ‘Can you believe I’m up here on top of a gigantic building in New York?’ Songs have
given me so many opportunities.”
Fans can share in those reminiscences on Time Again…Amy Grant Live, the DVD that features Grant’s
performance at Bass Hall as well as special behind the scenes footage, breakfast with Amy’s fan club, a
special audio commentary by Amy, and innovative footage from a “fan cam.”
“We ran a contest on our website and someone was chosen to have a video camera and an all access
pass,” Amy says of the fan cam adventure. “They were in the dressing room, backstage and everywhere.
That was interesting.”
For the concert portion of the DVD, Amy brings the audience into her living room---well actually as close
as they can get out on the road as she brought her sofa from home, the picture that hangs above that sofa
and other items from the living room of the house she shares with husband Vince Gill and their family.
“I feel like this project is neatly marked by a long-standing relationship between a singer/songwriter and
the audience, and I think you feel that when you watch it,” she says. “Any artist/audience relationship
develops over a period of decades. It’s not about a particular song. It’s not about a big presentation. It’s
about familiarity. That’s why everything from the stage set up to the way we did the songs highlights the
familiarity and the relationship and the friendship. It’s less about presentation and more about shared
experience.”
In essence that’s what it all comes down to—shared experience. Through the years, Amy Grant has
created so many memories with her audience. Whether helping a family in need on her recent NBC
television show Three Wishes or singing along with a local symphony on her fall 2006 tour, Amy Grant
is all about sharing experiences and touching lives.
“I would never in a million years guessed how it would turn out,” she says of her career and all the
success and celebrity that have followed that first gig in Fort Worth. “It’s like that story in the Bible of the
little boy with the loaves and fishes. I’ve always felt like the raw material I brought to the table was pretty
basic, pretty simple—not a lot of vocal tricks, not a lot of extraordinary guitar playing, just pretty
functional. But when I came to the table, I just said ‘God anything that you feel like doing with what you
gave me, go right ahead.’ I feel like extraordinary things have happened and I’m shocked every time I
think about it.”
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