Amy Grant News and Articles

2001

Lifetime's Intimate Portrait

Lifetime - Television for Women
May 2002

"There was never a point when I said, 'I want to be a gospel singer.' The reason I wrote songs about my faith was I was just trying to round out the repertoire of life."
-- Amy Grant

Amy Grant: Christian Songbird

The youngest of four daughters, Amy Lee Grant grew up in an affluent household full of love and religious faith. Inspired by the church music she loved, Grant took up songwriting and the guitar while studying at one of Nashville's ritziest private schools. She began composing songs about her love for God; at the age of 17, she recorded some of these songs in a studio as a gift for her family. The tape made it into the hands of the top brass at Word Records, which then signed Grant to a recording contract. Her self-titled debut album was released in 1977, the same year Grant graduated from high school and headed to college. Throughout her college years, the young singer-songwriter spent weekends and holidays touring the country, giving concerts.

In 1982, Grant married Gary Chapman, her guitarist and the author of her hit track "My Father's Eyes." The next year marked another milestone in Grant's life: She won a Grammy Award for her album "Age to Age" — the first Christian music record to go platinum. By 1985, the talented musician had won three Grammys, but she was still virtually unknown to anyone outside the Christian music audience. That changed with her album "Heart in Motion," which included "Baby, Baby," the hit song that received a Grammy nomination in the pop category. Grant, then the mother of three children, soon became truly famous.

Some of her longtime fans criticized her for crossing over into the mainstream, and the wagging tongues were even busier when Grant filed for divorce from her husband in 1999 and began spending more time with her close friend, country star Vince Gill. Despite the controversy, the two fell in love and married the next year, surrounded by a select group of family and friends. Grant and Gill had a child in 2001, and Grant says she felt happier and more peaceful than she had in years. To mark her 25th anniversary in the music industry, Grant put out an album called "Legacy...Hymns & Faith."

Five Things You Must Know...

  1. Grant is the best-selling contemporary Christian artist in music history.
  2. Her parents grounded her for taking a call from the record executives who eventually signed her. The call had come in after Grant's phone curfew.
  3. She received letters from each of the surviving Presidents to congratulate her for winning a major Christian award.
  4. Grant used to be so nervous in the recording studio that she insisted on singing with the lights off.
  5. She has been called both the Madonna and the Michael Jackson of gospel rock.


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