Amy Grant is the undisputed queen of Contemporary Christian Music. Early in her career, she was celebrated for devotional songs. Almost half a century later, she’s steering her new music towards social consciousness in her album, “The Me That Remains.”
It’s the result of a continually evolving perspective that occasionally clashes with evangelical standards, something Grant is used to.
15-year-old CCM pioneer
In 1975, a friend of Amy Grant’s got a hold of a record executive in Waco, Texas, who was interested in signing artists for a budding genre of music called CCM, or Contemporary Christian Music. They held a tape player up to the phone and hit play.
“ And his words were, ‘Well, she’s not that good, but she sounds sincere.’ And so, I signed a contract a couple of weeks before my 16th birthday,” said Grant.
Her first number one song on the CCM chart was a praise song called “Sing Your Praise to the Lord.” That song appeared on 1982’s “Age to Age” the first CCM album to go platinum.
This Is Nashville: A conversation with Amy Grant
She became a figure in pop culture right next to Madonna and Prince. But she was held to a different standard. “To serve the CCM market, it’s very important for any artists to conform to conservative white evangelical ideals,” says Leah Payne, author of “God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music.”
Grant didn’t always do that, leading her to navigate controversy throughout her career.
Market consequences
Early in her career there was the three-button controversy.
“What happened was Amy Grant’s album cover featured a V-neck shirt with the first three buttons unbuttoned, and it scandalized certain conservative observers. Her album at that time was banned by Christian bookstore owners who believed that the cover was risque and that risque outer garb could ‘indicate inner moral corruption,’ ” Payne said.
There was a Rolling Stone interview where Grant said she enjoyed having sex with her husband and sunbathing topless.
And recently she held a same-sex marriage ceremony at her farm in Nashville.
“Not aligning with very traditional ideals about marriage, family, sex sexuality and politics usually comes with punishment from the marketplace,” Payne said.
And then there was the divorce. In 1999, she split from her first husband Gary Chapman and shortly after married country legend Vince Gill.
“ I received surveys from young evangelical women who were told at the time in their homes that they could no longer listen to Amy Grant because she was seen as an example of a fallen woman. And she was seen as not viable in that marketplace,” Payne said.
But that didn’t stop her from releasing new music, ranging from collections of classic hymns to collaborations with mainstream figures like James Taylor. And those projects continued to top Billboard’s Christian album chart.
Grappling with the Trump era
Her last album, “How Mercy Looks from Here,” came out in 2013, during the Obama administration. A lot has changed since then. Even Amy Grant.
“Life changes all of us,” Grant said. In the past decade, Grant has faced all sorts of challenges. She endured a horrific bike accident in Percy Warner State Park that left her with some permanent damage and health issues.
Meanwhile, the world has gotten more politically divided and Grant is finding her space in it. Her new album is called “The Me that Remains.” The first track is “The 6th of January (Yasgur’s Farm)” by songwriter Sandra Emory Lawrence. Grant embraced it as a message of hope in a time of unrest, because it asks for understanding.
“We all see life through a different lens, and we have to maintain respect, saying, ‘Hey, what does it look like from there?’ Cause I’m here. But from, from your vantage point, tell me what this looks like,” Grant said.
Grant is interested in asking questions, not taking a side. But she must have a lens. I asked her what her political beliefs are, point blank.
“I discuss all these things with the people next to me. But, but I don’t discuss things like that publicly because the platform I have, I think is to bring people together.”
Grant continues asking questions in a new song that she co-wrote, called “How Do We Get There From Here?”
“The words that keep coming to me are do unto others as you would have them do to you. The golden rule, you know, it’s basically the words of Jesus. The golden rule was taught day in and day out when I was a kid, and somewhere along the line, like, people stop saying that, but it hasn’t been lost,” she said.
Consequences from the algorithm
The message may not seem controversial, but appeals to compassion and civility are a departure from the praise music of Grant’s past. And that has its own market consequences.
David Macias, the head of her new label, Thirty Tigers, says that he signed Grant because of the album’s message. But he says that he’s also aware of the marketing challenges. On streaming services, the algorithms reward Christian artists making the type of music that aligns with what’s popular in the white evangelical market. In CCM, that is praise and worship music.
This Is Nashville: The rise and resurgence of Christian music
“ Praise music started working really well and then a lot of the artists who were doing some things other than praise music started thinking like, ‘Well, I’ve gotta start doing praise music to be able to get on the radio and, and to, to make it, make it work.’ And so that is the dominant data set,” Macias said. “If you’re trying to engender some other conversations, it can prove challenging.”
But Grant is at a place in her career when she can afford to encourage tough conversations.
“Her legacy is secure as a CCM icon,” Payne said, “and so I don’t think it’s surprising that we’ve seen her over the last few years continue to have a mind of her own.”
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM