She arrived in the late 1970s, a baby-faced, 17-year-old Georgia girl singing Contemporary Christian pop music. Over the decades, Amy Grant won 22 Dove Awards and six Grammys, all of them for her Christian and gospel recordings.<\/p>\n
Grant, who\u2019ll perform with her band Sunday at Clearwater\u2019s Capitol Theatre, began expanding her musical vocabulary in the \u201880s, with well-crafted pop crossover material, although never abandoning her faith nor her roots in Christian and gospel. To date, she has sold a cumulative 30 million albums and has over 2.2 billion global streams.<\/p>\n
A few more fast facts: Grant was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2022; she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; her semi-annual Christmas tours with husband Vince Gill are across-the-board sellouts.<\/p>\n
An ambassador for the American Heart Association\u2019s Go Red for Women movement, she performed at the \u201cRed Dress Collection\u201d concert Jan. 29 at Lincoln Center. Grant sang her hits \u201cBaby Baby,\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s What Love is For\u201d and \u201cEvery Heartbeat,\u201d along with the title track from her upcoming album, The Me That Remains.<\/p>\n
The album was produced by longtime Jimmy Buffett compadre Mac McAnally and will be released May 8 by Thirty Tiger Records. Check that title: The Me That Remains is especially significant for Grant, 65, because it\u2019s her first full collection of new music since the 2022 Nashville bicycle accident that nearly killed her.<\/p>\n
Just two years prior, she\u2019d undergone open-heart surgery to repair a congenital condition.<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s Amy Grant, back on the upswing, and telling the Catalyst she\u2019s feeling great about her life\u2019s journey so far.<\/p>\n
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St. Pete Catalyst: When the health issues happened, did you think \u2018Well, these are career-enders\u2019?<\/p>\n
Amy Grant: I could not have been more shocked that a doctor said I needed open-heart surgery. But I didn\u2019t dread it. I didn\u2019t think about it. I thought, I\u2019m just gonna live every day. Covid set in, and it was a while before the hospitals opened up for elective surgery. That\u2019s what they called it. I thought well, I\u2019m electing to live! Does that count?<\/p>\n
I honestly didn\u2019t try to wrap my head around it until the night before, and I was having to wash myself with this blue soap. And then I got a little nervous and I thought well, you know what, it\u2019s gonna pass just like every 24 hours passes. And it\u2019ll be what it\u2019ll be. And I did, and I recovered from that.<\/p>\n
Actually, it was just getting over the entry wound. The entry wound was like getting hit by a truck. But my life was better afterwards, because I didn\u2019t realize how compromised my oxygen level was in my blood, and had been from the time I was a child.<\/p>\n
So I was grateful to have something that could be fixed.<\/p>\n
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You had a severe brain injury from the bike accident. That must have been scary.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah. That has been a long recovery. The first 18 months, that was the most dramatic. But you know, you just have what you have when you wake up in a day. I just kind of found my footing, little by little, and things still continue to improve. I\u2019m so grateful, the last six months, for my balance is better.<\/p>\n
To me, the great reminder is, everybody is in recovery \u2013 of some kind [laughing].<\/p>\n
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The Me That Remains will be your first album in 13 years. Was it nice to take that time off, and work whenever you felt like it?<\/p>\n
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I have toured pretty consistently. One thing I love about the world of creativity is, everything comes in seasons. There\u2019s a season of songwriting, then that overlaps with a season of recording. Or a season of touring. And that\u2019s just the work part of life. I\u2019m part of a large extended family, and that kind of has its own rhythms.<\/p>\n
But I never stopped touring. I mean, there was a big shutdown with Covid, but I probably toured 80 cities after Covid, and then I had that accident and everything was on hold again. But I probably do 80 shows a year, which is not a lot, but it\u2019s enough for me to get to enjoy all that, and still have other parts of life that matter as well but are not as public.<\/p>\n
There were many years when I was putting out music routinely, and I had small kids. It felt like I was drinking out of a firehose. It really did. And no, life does not go that way now.<\/p>\n
You look at young parents, with three kids under 6, and you just go \u2018Life will not always feel this way. Someday, you can have a clean house \u2026 not now.\u2019 [laughing]. But there are those seasons in life for everybody. When there\u2019s not enough mental space; all of life feels like Whack-a-Mole, you know? You\u2019re just trying to deal with the next thing that\u2019s popping up, and you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n
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You recorded these songs sporadically over time, two or three at a session. Was it always going to be an album?<\/p>\n
We did the third session, and Mac said \u2018Girl, I think we got a record.\u2019 I said \u2018Great \u2013 I wish I had a record deal.\u2019 It was so much fun to just let something unfold in real time. No deadlines. Life can\u2019t be that way, I don\u2019t think \u2013 we all need the pressure at times to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other.<\/p>\n
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Because you started out in Christian music, and continue to record in that genre sometimes, I wondered: Was pop stardom something you sought, or did it just happen organically?<\/p>\n
It just happened organically. I love the experience of music, and this sounds weird coming out of my mouth: It\u2019s enough for me to just get to participate privately, like just working on guitar, for me \u2026 I\u2019m not an accomplished musician \u2026 music, whether you\u2019re working on it at home or on a stage, it\u2019s the same feel-good.<\/p>\n
And the beautiful thing about touring with a band is, everybody\u2019s bringing what they bring. Whatever that massage is in your brain when you\u2019re creating music, or playing something, it feels good alone or with people. I\u2019ve loved that from the time I was young.<\/p>\n
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There are still people not happy with you because you went into more secular music. I figure it was just part of your journey.<\/p>\n
Yeah, like everybody\u2019s life is so unique. Everybody\u2019s. And this was my unique life, the people I met, the work relationships, the twists and tuns in the story of my own life. I mean, everybody\u2019s life is a full-time adventure.<\/p>\n
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Tell us about the show you and your band are bringing to Clearwater Sunday.<\/p>\n
For the past 15 years, because I\u2019ve had so little new music, every time I go on the road I try to just re-invent the set list. Especially in the last five years, I want to sing songs I haven\u2019t sung in a long time. I try to pick from every chapter of my musical life. Because it\u2019s the songs that are bringing us together.<\/p>\n
So I sing songs from the late \u201870s, early \u201880s, late \u201880s, \u201890s \u2026 and I\u2019m like woo-hoo! I actually have something new, now, to play for people. Not that anybody ever cares about new music; what you love about a show is knowing the song that the artist is singing \u2013 \u2018oh, that reminds me of Spring Break my senior year,\u2019 \u2018oh, that reminds me of a road trip\u2019 \u2013 so nobody\u2019s holding their breath waiting for new music. But it\u2019s fun for me.<\/p>\n