Can Amy become the first Christian artist to cross over successfully from the gospel side and enter the musical mainstream? Will Amy’s uplifting, positive songs start breaking the Top 40? Will she come the darling of America’s teenagers—but, instead, of a bad girl image, present an unabashedly positive, Christian image?

It could happen. And it could happen sooner than many Amy Grant fans realize.

"God has allowed me to be where I am. And I do believe I’m in the right place at the right time," Amy Grant says. "But I would never belittle my relationship with Him by saying, "I’ll give my life to You, and You make me a great singer, okay?’ There are all kinds of people who are never going to achieve notoriety of any sort, and the Lord is just as active, if not more so, in their lives as in mine."

There is a pause, a flicker of thoughtful hesitation, as Amy struggles to articulate her feelings. Maintaining the delicate balance between her unprecedented popular success in Christian music and an abiding faith that seeks to see beyond circumstances—good or bad—takes a special kind of insight. "It’s not a cause and effect situation," she explains. "And yet, I can’t help but say that anything I’ve attained, He has allowed to happen."

Snacking on corn chips and sipping iced tea, Amy and Gary Chapman, her husband of little over a year, are spending an afternoon on the patio of a Los Angeles hotel.

The December sun sets behind the smog-shrouded Hollywood hills, and the shadow of a skyscraper cuts across the blue depths of the hotel’s swimming pool. With unexpected candor, the 23-year-old singer freely reveals a private side to her very public persona.

Alternately earnest and playful, introspective and charming, Amy seems anchored, somewhere deep inside, to a calm center, a knowing certainty that never allows her to take herself too seriously. The keen sense of humor she shares with Gary is grounded in a wise estimation of their own foibles and inconsistencies. With admirable ease, they walk the fine line between answering God’s call as gospel musicians and living together amidst the often surreal ironies of show business.

"I know I still struggle with temper, selfishness, and pride," Amy admits, her brown eyes sparkling. "I’ve been a Christian for years, and I know that I really desire the Lord. But I can’t just lump all the parts of me together and say, ‘I’m this one color.’ I have a wonderful dose of insecurity about myself…it’s what keeps me on my toes.

"I would never be prideful about my singing," she continues. "But there’s always some other rip in my personality—in my relationship with Gary or my family, for instance. We’re never so foolish to show our pride where people most expect to see it. But I know it’s affecting me when I start acting like a real hotshot in some other area."

Pride, it seems, is an occupational hazard for an artist of Amy Grant’s formidable appeal and influence. A singing career that began at 15 has taken her farther than almost anyone else in the contemporary gospel field. Recognition of Amy’s considerable achievements came from the music industry with a 1982 Grammy for her gold-selling album, Age to Age.

The real, but difficult to measure, result of Amy’s musical ministry is evidenced in the profound effect of her songs on the lives of ordinary Christians. Beyond exhorting, educating or entertaining, Amy reaches listeners on deeply personal levels—relating to unspoken emotions, expressing untapped longings, releasing genuine praise and worship through the simple gift of her own conviction. "When people say my music has touched their lives, it’s gratifying," she remarks. "It’s a confirmation that I’m doing my job honestly and well. I’m reflecting what’s happening in my own life."

What’s happening in Amy’s life seems to have remarkably little to do with the lures of fame. "A lot of times I have trouble shaking the feeling that this shouldn’t be happening to me," she admits. "There are ten other people I know who are more talented than I am."

It’s precisely because she has such a hard time believing the praise she’s received that her special qualities – honesty, humility, and an almost lack of pretension—shine through most brightly. She is, in a word, real. And it’s that same sense of openness that ignites Amy’s music.

Making their home in Nashville, Amy and Gary are visiting Los Angeles, in Gary’s words, "to try and get more exposure," to reach out to the world at large with the positive values of gospel music. They want to keep growing as communicators – without restrictions but, most of all, without compromise.

Implementing the master plan isn’t as easy as it may sound. There’s a high wall that separates gospel music artists from the mainstream. And overcoming that wall can be very difficult, especially when much of the resistance comes, ironically from the church.

According to Amy, her detractors throw out the baby with the bathwater when they condemn modern music wholesale, including Christian pop and rock forms. This causes confusion, especially among young Christians who find joy in Amy’s decidedly contemporary music. Hers is the same kind of music judged so harshly by others in the church.

Against this continuing controversy, Amy is poised to make significant inroads into popular mass media. There’ s no doubt that her Grammy award and gold record for Age to Age are opening many new doors. By definition, the entertainment industry keeps a sharp eye out for new, fresh talent. Amy is nothing, if not all of the above.

During this trip, however, it seems that Tinsel Town has not exactly taken Amy to heart. Attempting to book her on several network television programs has had decidedly mixed results. "I really felt like meat on a hook," she admits ruefully. "We’d go places like Johnny Carson. The talent director would take me into the inner sanctum, while Gary and my manager sat outside making bets on how I’d do."

The trip succeeded, however, in Gary’s phrase, in "planting seeds." A spot on Dick Clark’s syndicated music special, Salute, taught Amy a lesson in both the problems and potential of appearing on network television.

"They wanted me to do ‘Put Your Hand in the Hand," Amy says laughing. "I told them I wouldn’t do that or ‘Oh Happy Day.’ So I ended up singing a Russ Taff song, ‘We Will Stand.’"

Amy and Gary submitted Taff’s number one Christian radio hit to Salute’s producer as an example of the best in today’s contemporary Christian music. It was gratifying to Amy that her singing partner on the show, Lou Rawls responded to it enthusiastically.

After the Dick Clark episode, Amy went to tape a spot for The Merv Griffin Show. She sang "Tennessee Christmas" from A Christmas Album in a segment that was aired nationwide during the holiday season.

Overall, Amy enjoyed her television experience. "You know, we met some really wonderful people," she says. "As Christians, we tend to assume that anyone who’s not in an obvious Christian career just can’t be a believer. It’s not true. We’re all over the place. It’s also true, I think, that no matter where a person’s heart may be with the Lord, there’s something infectious about positive music –music that brings life. Those are the people I’d like to reach through television. Let’s face it, there’s an awful lot more of them out there than we’re reaching in concerts."

"Television is a tremendous way of generating interest," adds Gary. "IF 500,000 people see one show, maybe 500 of them will come out to see us when we play in their town. And that’s 500 more who will hear the message of the gospel. When you look at the power of the media today, it’s pretty simple. You either stay home and watch it—or you try to get on it."

"We really don’t approach music in terms of who is going to get the most benefit from it," interjects Amy. "Body music and outreach music are terms we stay away from. They both should be the same, really. Sometimes I’m struck the hardest by a song that’s supposed to be written for unbelievers. If there’s a part of me that’s still not given over to the Lord, I can respond. You can’t treat songs so narrowly, trying to target to just one type of person. I think Christian music is limiting in terms of who has a chance to hear what."

"Christian music itself is much further down the road than it was even a few years ago," Gary explains. "The quality of the songs has improved vastly. But as a label, it tends to keep people at arm’s length."

Overcoming resistance to that label—and getting the message to those who need it most—continues to be a major goal for Amy and Gary, along with managers Mike Blanton and Dan Harrell. All four firmly believe that Amy is only beginning to fulfill her special calling. That calling includes a growing commitment to the gospel—and a growing popular appeal.

How did Amy Grant and Gary Chapman—two talented, young Christians from different worlds—become romantically and professional involved? According to Chapman, their long and often tumultuous courtship is "a real storybook tale." The facts amply bear him out.

Gary is the youngest of three children of an Assembly of God preacher from the tiny Texas hamlet of Delion. Gary first met Amy –the youngest of four daughters from a prosperous Nashville doctor’s home – in the spring of 1979. "I had written a song called ‘Father’s Eyes,’ one of the first things I’d ever tried to sell as a songwriter," Gary recounts. "Amy cut the song, and we met at an album-listening party."

"I didn’t see him again until six months later," says Amy, picking up the story. "I was still going to school, majoring in English at Furman University in South Carolina. This was kind of a rough time for me. Back then, I had this idea that I had to deliver one album every year at the same time. I was sort of like having four babies in four years. With going to school and all, I was exhausted.

"So, at the end of my sophomore year I took a semester off. I was working in a coffeeshop/bookstore in Nashville called Koinonia, which was the first place I’d ever performed in. Gary used to drop by occasionally to play a few songs. He seemed nice enough. But the next year, when my manager said he wanted to put me on the road with Gary Chapman, I couldn’t place the name. I was back at school then, so I invited him up for the weekend to get to know him. It wasn’t romantic at all. We played racquetball, sang together, went for drives in the country. We started finding things we both enjoyed doing together."

"We used to stop at these old country churches," recalls Gary, "and prowl through the cemeteries looking at old headstones. It was fascinating. I was just trying to stay alive at the time as a songwriter. I shared an apartment in Nashville with three other guys and did session work when I could find it. The tour with Amy was the first time I’d ever been out as a solo artist. I had a 25-minute warm-up act, and the whole experience was a blast."

"It was a lot of fun," Amy agrees. "You just can’t put a 19-year-old and a 22-year-old together for that long a time without there being some kind of interaction. We could have been any two kids out doing what we both loved to do. The results would have been the same."

The results were an on-again, off-again courtship that lasted almost three years. "I guess I didn’t realize he was courting," Amy admits ruefully. "I though we were great friends, that’s all. He became a real part of my family. They took him in, because they thought he was just a companion to their little girl. It was pretty sneaky."

"She was so naïve," says Gary, recounting their early years together, "not spacey exactly, but vulnerable."

Through much of the next year, the couple saw little of each other. An injunction against mixing personal and professional lives was in force, and Gary was forbidden by Amy’s manager Dan Harrell (who also happens to be her brother-in-law) from performing on stage with Amy while romantically involved. "Aside from that, we rally weren’t getting along very well," admits Amy. "We were two young kids trying to figure out who we were, and there was this other person complicating things."

In May of 1981, while Amy was attending Vanderbilt University in Nashville, the two met again. "I saw him in a movie theater and said, ‘Will you talk to me?’ That night we realized that even if we couldn’t work out anything else, our friendship was too valuable to give up. That took the pressure off. In September he asked me to marry him.

"It’s funny," she continues, "but during the first couple of months of the marriage, I think we kind of lost the friendship." She looks to her husband, asking, "Do you think that’s off the wall?"

"No," he replies. "I’d left home six years before settling down. I knew how to live on my own. You’d never even had a place of your own."

"I did have the hardest adjustment to make," Amy confides. "I was the youngest in my family and the most pampered. Besides that, somewhere deep inside I had a lot of insecurity. Before we were married, I figured as long as Gary never had me, he’d always want me. We always had to fight so hard to be together. So, when we were finally left alone, there was about a four-month yawn."

"She gets so honest," Gary responds, "that she forgets the good parts!"

The interchange between Gary and Amy is quick, smooth, and open. Amy doesn’t seem to mind playing the occasional straight role in her husband’s wryly comic routines. For his part, Gary responds with genuine enthusiasm to his wife’s insights. However, by their own admission, the impression of a smoothly coordinated relationship is not entirely accurate.

"The most important thing we learned so far," Amy notes, "is how to fight."

Amy and her husband work closely together, allowing for an intimacy not often shared by young married couples. Gary oversees many of the creative aspects of Amy’s career, including executive production on the new Straight Ahead album, as well as putting together the live show. "I get a lot of enjoyment out of what I do," he says. "I guess it could seem like a problem. You know, she brings home the bacon and I eat it. But I’ve gotten so involved in what she’s doing that it’s really a ream effort and totally fulfilling."

Part of that team effort includes songwriting. Amy and Gary share credits on a number of Straight Ahead’s most memorable numbers. However, as Amy points out, "A lot of the creative energy that used to go into songwriting now goes into letter writing to my closest friends. That’s just as important as any career. You don’t get that many good friends in a lifetime. And if you don’t cultivate them, you end up with no extended family at all."

On the subject of Amy’s new album, there are both in complete agreement. "Straight Ahead is musically the most credible thing we’ve done," says Gary.

"It’s a more cohesive sound," explains Amy. "A real team effort between us, the band, and everyone else involved. Most of the music we’ve been playing in concerts for some time. So, we’ve had a chance to live with it and get a better idea of how audiences respond. It wasn’t all just put together in the studio, where you really have no concept of how a song will wear.

Straight Ahead should indeed give Amy Grant fans much to celebrate. The ten selections have a solid, uncluttered sound, and much of the songwriting shows a new maturity and revitalized commitment for living and sharing Christian truths in meaningful, accessible ways.

"We know that a lot of people use our music to reach their friends and family," concludes Amy. "That’s a tremendous responsibility, and it makes you think even harder about what goes into each song."

What goes into each song Amy Grant sings these days is the kind of faith tested and tempered by real life. From her early image as the darling of Christian music, she has come to new and exciting challenges in her craft, career, and commitment.

Since that visit to Hollywood, the seeds Amy and Gary planted are beginning to grow. According to manager Harrell, Amy was invited to open this year’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony by singing the title song from the movie Flashdance. She declined, but every time she declines, more doors open up.

To date, Amy is scheduled to appear as a Cinderella character in a network TV special sponsored by 7-Up this spring. Her closing song was supposed to be "Do You Believe In Magic," an old Lovin’ Spoonful classic. Amy objected to the song, because it could be misconstrued, especially by her Christian audience. So, her team suggested an alternate, "Listen to the Music," which the producers gladly accepted.

They even admitted that the song was a better choice overall than the original.

As Amy breaks through traditional barriers that have kept gospel artists—and the gospel message—out of the mainstream of contemporary life, there is still one major concern. Amy is saddened by those who miss the spirit of her music, trying to hide the positive message in the church, instead of sharing it with the world.

Dan Harrell calls Amy "an agent of change in an anti-moral culture." He explains that Amy is committed to long-term change. "It’s taken many years for American culture to sink this low," Amy’s manager says. "So, we’re not going to see a turnaround overnight." Future plans call for Amy to reach out as a singer and, surprisingly, as an actress. "If the next Chariots of Fire

comes along, we want to be ready," says Harrell.

Amy, it seems, is staying well on track, learning careful discernment and resisting the impulse to react to flattery or over-react to criticism. "I’ve been doing this for eight years now, and I’m not a total idiot," she says laughing. "People’s opinions are not all that important."

In an effort to break new ground without making any compromises, Amy and her team work closely with the pastor and elders of her local church. "Our elders visit Amy’s concerts," her manager says. This way Amy receives feedback from and remains accountable to individuals who are basically uninvolved with the music ministry.

To many, Amy is a Christian cheerleader, raking the message and the spirit into the world through the doors she believes the Lord is opening for her. In the midst of all this, she and Gary also look forward to raising a family someday, perhaps several years down the line.

On the brink of a major breakthrough, Amy remains her simple, straightforward, and sincere self. Summing up the whole situation, Dan Harrell emphasizes one very important point: "Don’t worry. Amy is still Amy."

More Articles