This month, however, Grant has hit the road for a 22-city tour to smaller venues that she views as a chance to reconnect with people who have followed her music over the years. Although the contemporary Christian singer-songwriter was still rehearsing, she spoke recently about what the audience can expect from the show, which comes to Dayton's Memorial Hall on Friday:
• The music: Grant said she wasn't planning a specific list of songs, but she's working on a show that is "hopefully, really, gonna be a little bit different every night . . . . I just hope it feels very nostalgic. We’re probably gonna do maybe a half a dozen songs from Legacy. The purpose of the tour is not to do the whole Legacy record, even though we’re doing some churches, and it’s called the Legacy . . . Hymns & Faith record. To me it just sets a nostalgic tone. We’re gonna do songs all the way from the late ’70s up through today, with a few 100-year-old gems."
• Will Vince Gill be there? "Yes, as a matter of fact, (several) weeks ago, (guitarist) Jerry McPherson said he couldn’t go. . . . And when I hung up I said, 'Vince, he can’t do the tour. What am I gonna do?' We’d arranged our schedule so that we could try to be with each other, you know, and not have parallel tours going on at the time, so he said 'I’m free."
• As a woman of 41 back in the spotlight: In a trial show last month in Syracuse, N.Y., "I felt kind of weird even going out there. At this point in my life, if a good song comes on the radio and if I wiggle my shoulders or tap the break, I have kids that’ll go, 'Mom, stop — you’re embarrassing us.' It’s amazing how you kind of choke down all those impulses. It’s like I walked out on stage thinking, 'OK, it’s OK to tap your foot. . . . Your children are not here.' But it wound up being so much fun."
• The advantages of smaller venues: "The audience does have an impact on the show. In an arena, I mean, there’s really an excitement to a hyped-up arena crowd, but there’s also kind of a sameness every night. It’s so big, there’s not really a chance for the audiences to take on there own personality. . . . In a theater, you’ll think, 'Oh gosh, the thing that person yelled out was so funny.' . . . I think the crowd and the people on stage play off each other more."
• For example: On the Behind the Eyes tour (in 1998), I was in a theater somewhere — I was getting ready to do Big Yellow Taxi — and this one woman yelled out, ‘Can I sing background with you?’ And I said, ‘Sure, come on down.’ Anyway, I turn around, and I’m startin’ to strum that E chord and when I turn back around, there are like six women on stage and two or three more jumping up, and I thought, 'You know, it’s just a handful of shoo-bop-bops, we don’t really need this much help.' But I think people feel like they just feel more vital to the evening."
• Who's the audience? "It takes a lot to shoehorn me out of my house, with four kids and a husband and a busy life. And my guess is a lot of my audience are people like me. And maybe they’re not in the middle of their big, 'hey, let’s go hear some live music' years because life is so busy."
• Who's on stage? "Including Vince, five musicians, two background singers and myself. We have no set. I guess a few lights. I was talking to Kim Keyes, who’s gonna sing background. . . . And I said, 'Kim, we’ve got to do something to kind of dress up the stage' because it’s a one-truck tour. . . . But Kim and I were talking and she said, 'You know candles are always a great thing. And so she and I are scheming, you know, how can we carry 100 candles a night on the road? How long does a tea candle burn? And what are the fire codes like? But I thought, I have never in my life been responsible with the background singer for making the stage look good. There’s always been like a set carpenter. But times are different and life is different and I’m different."
Contact James Lloyd at 225-2217 or by e-mail at james_lloyd@coxohio.com
[From the Dayton Daily News: 09.19.2002]
More Articles