What's Pop Got to Do With It?
By Christa A. Banister, Senior Music Editor, GospelMusicChannel.com
30 is the New 20
With this week’s release of Songs For the Journey, Sandi Patty will have – count ‘em – 30 albums to her credit. To put that number in perspective, that’s eight more than Amy Grant, nine more than Michael W. Smith and 14 more than Steven Curtis Chapman. This time around, Patty takes her cues from the genre-hopping styles of American Idol and dabbles with everything from pop to Broadway-inspired tunes and even opera.
“The idea for this project came from watching my kids get older,” Patty says. “I recently began to wonder and hope about what things they will someday look back upon as being foundational in their lives. Then I asked the same question of myself in relation to my passion for music – what are the songs that have inspired me and come to represent my journey, and how can I give those back to others as an encouragement?”
Songs For the Journey includes a duet with her husband Don Peslis on Panis Angelicus, two covers of Andrae Crouch gospel classics and a retooled version of For Good from the popular Broadway show, Wicked, plus seven other tracks.
For a preview of Songs for the Journey and Patty’s upcoming tour dates, check out www.sandipatty.com.
It’s a Blog, Blog World
With busy tour schedules and only so many hours in the day (can’t we all relate?), many of your favorite artists’ blogs aren’t updated nearly as often as fans might hope. But for Jeremy Camp, Jars of Clay and Natalie Grant, that’s all changing.
With new releases for Camp and Jars on the horizon, they’re providing fans the inside track in cyberspace. On www.jeremycamp.com, several new blogs have been added from Jeremy, his wife and fellow artist Adie, not to mention his road crew in anticipation of his sixth album, Speaking Louder Than Before (BEC). “It’s my hope to keep fans in the loop more than ever before with our new blogs,” Camp told Gospel Music Channel. “We are turning into blogging pros and cannot wait for you to see our new blogs grow. We promise to update as much as possible, and we invite you to leave your comments along the way.”
For Jars of Clay’s fans, their website at www.jarsofclay.com provides pics from the studio and the scoop on the band’s still-untitled follow-up to 2006’s Good Monsters. And for those who simply can’t wait for the new album, there are a couple of intriguing audio clips called Triangle Song and Drive.
And while Natalie Grant’s new disc Relentless dropped back in February, the reigning Female Vocalist of the Year weighs in on everything from her thoughts on American Idol to her favorite movie candy and offers up cute pics of her twins, too, on her new frequently updated blog at www.nataliegrant.com.
Going Retro
For Christian music fans who remember (and long for) “the good ol’ days” and for newer fans who’ve never heard the songs that helped shape the industry, a new live CD/DVD collection should be just what the doctor ordered. With this summer’s release of The Beginnings Concert, a two-night concert taped at Community Bible Church in San Antonio, some of Christian music’s pioneers including Dallas Holm, Don Francisco, Steve Archer, David Meece and countless others recorded updated arrangements of their time-honored classics in front of a studio audience. “This is the concert I’ve always wanted to be a part of,” says Holm. “And it was even better than I anticipated.”
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About the Writer
After graduating with a B.S. in Journalism from North Central University in 1998, Christa Banister moved to Nashville, Tenn. and eventually started working at CCM Magazine/Salem Publishing in various editorial capacities (including managing editor) for five and a half years. After that, she launched her own freelance writing company and writes for numerous clients including CCM Magazine, Crosswalk.com (she review movies for them each week), Christian Single, Christianity Today, Threads Media, Songs4Worship.com, BurnLounge, PassAlong.com and helped kickstart the first Christian music blog for MTV. She also writes bios for professional recording artists and authors and penned her first two fiction novels for NavPress in 2007.
