Copious Notes

Switchfoot’s This is the Sound rocks the new Blackberry commercial.

During the past year, there have been public signs that Christian pop music is on the rise.

Last spring on American Idol, a pair of openly Christian ­contestants vied for the title and one of them, Kris Allen, won. Your TV doesn’t have to be on long to hear the rumblings of Switchfoot, one of Christian music’s top bands, on commercials for BlackBerry’s new Storm2 smartphone. Late in the summer, when Christian rockers Skillet released their latest, Awake, it perched itself atop iTunes’ rock album charts and at No. 3 overall.

Pretty good stuff for a niche genre, eh?

But beneath the surface, there have been rumblings for some time.

Late in the summer, Gospel Music Association president and CEO John Styll stepped down, saying he was sacrificing his salary in an effort to stabilize the ­organization, which has laid off a number of staffers. Then, in October, the GMA held an all-star fund-raiser - we’re talking Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith ­heading a lineup that included Casting Crowns and other chart toppers - billed as “Save the GMA.”

Even though that $1,000-a-head event apparently was a success, raising more than $350,000, there were rumors late last month that the GMA was closing its doors.

The association’s troubles come on the heels of other setbacks in Christian music, such as the shutdown of the print edition of the industry’s ­flagship ­publication, CCM Magazine, which was founded by Styll, and ­attendance drops at some festivals.

Christian music also has faced the double whammy of the ­economic downturn and the ­effects of a rapidly changing music ­marketplace less dependent on major labels for distribution and increasingly challenged by problems such as digital music piracy. (Yes, people are stealing Christian music. Go figure.)

These are problems affecting the music industry as a whole, and you know that if the top of the pops is getting battered, the foundations of a niche genre really must be getting shaken.

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When Phil Stacey was a ­contestant on American Idol, he was pegged as a little bit country.

So that’s where the Harlan County native ended up after the show, on the country label Lyric Street Records. In 2008, he released a self-titled debut.

But anyone who was paying attention and knew a little bit about Stacey could hear something in the twang: a message.

Phil Stacey. Photo courtesy of Reunion Records.

“Even on my country record, every song was based on a Bible verse, to me,” Stacey says. “People who knew Christian music would say, ‘How could you put a John Waller song on a country CD?’” Stacey adds, referring to a modern rock worship leader and songwriter, “but we managed to pull it off.”

Since then, Stacey has made what he calls “a lateral move from Disney’s country label to Sony’s Christian label.”

And what a Christian label.

On Aug. 25, Stacey’s Into the Light will be released on Reunion Records. That would be the same label as Michael W. Smith, with whom Stacey also shares a manager. And he recorded the album with legendary Christian music maestro Brown Bannister, who was behind many of Smith’s and Amy Grant’s big successes.

“It was intimidating going into the studio with someone who’s worked with such gifted people,” Stacey says, noting other Bannister collaborators such as Russ Taff and Michael English. “But at the end of the day, he started out as a youth pastor, and he has a minister’s heart, which set my nerves at ease.

“We talked about the Bible and verses behind songs, and prayed before tracking. I admire Brown more as a person than for his musical background.”

This fall, Stacey hits the road with Smith.

“He’s been so encouraging,” Stacey says. “He’d send me texts like, ‘Phil, I really like this record,’ which meant the world to me.”

So far, the Smith/Stacey tour itinerary does not include Kentucky, though Stacey says he does get back home frequently.

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Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman on stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, April 26, 2009. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

When you get a ticket to a concert featuring Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, there are moments you hope for.

Like, the pair riffing on each other’s gargantuan catalogues. After Chapman finished his first-half solo set at Rupp Arena Sunday night, Smith came out and said, “You know, you didn’t sing one of my favorite songs. May I?” and launched into the Chapman classic, The Great Adventure.

Smith in the opening number, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Chapman complimented Smith saying, “You should do an album of Steven Curtis Chapman songs,” and then returned the favor singing Smith’s Place in this World.

They were moments that remind you iconic artists are fully capable of appreciating other iconic artists’ work. They can also razz each other like guys standing around the grill on Saturday afternoon.

In one of several age-related jokes, 46-year-old Chapman lauded 51-year-old Smith for “blazing a trail,” for him. “So I blazed a trail?” Smith replied. “At least I wasn’t clogging in Opryland,” he said, referring to one of Chapman’s pre-contemporary-Christian-music superstar gigs.

It was an evening of good humor and deep appreciation for the singers, and basically a two-fer for the audience that was nowhere near as big as the dual-headliner bill deserved. Rupp, in it’s 5,000-ish seat Heart of Rupp Arena configuration, looked to be about half full. Maybe Christian stars shouldn’t compete with regularly-scheduled church activities, because the Lexington crowd is usually much more supportive of Christian pop.

The crowd that did turn out got to see Smith and Chapman together and in individual sets, which were strikingly different.

Smith had the most cohesive musical presentation of the pair. Taking the stage on his own in the second half, he offered a few blasts from the past, including Secret Ambition from the 1988 release i2Eye and Go West Young Man from the album of the same name. He also played The Giving from his 2000 instrumental album, Freedom, which sounded surprisingly good without an acoustic piano or orchestra.

But Smith’s recent focus has been worship music, and once he launched into a set from his current A New Hallelujah album and his Worship efforts, Smith was deep into his own element. And while some of us may lament a dearth of his greatest hits in Smith’s recent shows, he is a compelling worship leader.

Chapman sings Yours, a song he said had taken on new meaning since the death of his daughter.

Chapman’s set was an all-too-modest greatest hits set. What was striking was, it is difficult to remember a Christian artist with as focused a testimony as Chapman currently has. Most everyone in the house knew that last May 21, Chapman’s 5-year-old adoptive daughter Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman was killed in a tragic accident at the family’s home.

Any question as to whether Chapman would address his loss was quickly answered when he introduced his 2007 hit, Yours. He said the tragedy forced him to reconsider the implications of the lyrics about turning everything over to God, and later in the set said he had a new perspective on a lot of his music. He also said he thought he would never be able to sing Cinderella, a song he wrote for his daughters, again. But he did at his first concert back on stage last July, and performed it last night, beautifully isolating the final line in the song about a dad having to let go of his little girls as they grow up: “I know the truth is the dance will go on.”

Chapman actually shared his testimony about Maria, the third child he and his wife adopted from China, in a great little song arc, concluding with God is God, a song about trusting the almighty from his 2001 album Declaration.

Chapman and Smith combined for a tidy three hour show, including an intermission and pitch for Chapman’s Show Hope charity which supports orphan children. They both addressed their Kentucky connections, Chapman talking about his Paducah home and brief stint as a pre-med student at Georgetown College and native West Virginian Smith talking about his Rupp Arena memories, including concerts there when he was Amy Grant’s keyboard player.

The sweetest moments between the two though were not so much when they bantered or played each other’s tunes, but when they were simply there for each other. Smith told the crowd the original set list did not include Chapman’s I Will be Here, and he would have refused to tour without Chapman including it, before he played keyboard’s for Chapman’s rendition of the classic.

And half way through Smith’s Friends, Chapman strode out to sing the chorus, and Smith deferred to him for the final line, “A lifetime’s not too long to live as friends.”

Delirious frontman Martin Smith in India in January. A visit to India inspired the CompassionArt project.

Click play to hear our interview with Martin Smith, in which he talks about CompassionArt, India and the end of Delirious.

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

Over its last couple of albums, Delirious has become increasingly vocal about poverty and disease around the world.

One of the British band’s most recent worship anthems, Our God Reigns, pricked listeners and singers consciousnesses with the idea that the cost of an order of Chinese take-out food could cover the cost of medicine for an impoverished victim of AIDS.

“I remember going to India for the first time and being completely shocked, like being hit over the head with a baseball bat,” says Martin Smith, the group’s leader singer and songwriter. “I realized that people lived on the same planet as me with completely nothing. That set a massive thing off in me, feeling like I couldn’t just get on a plane and do nothing. I had to make a personal response.

“That was the beginning of Delirious trying to find new things to say, and react to what was going on inside of us.”

That reaction has come to fruition on a much larger scale, in a new multi-artist project called CompassionArt.

The new album, released Jan. 27, features 14 songs by 19 of the biggest names in contemporary Christian music, including Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Israel Houghton and Tobymac.

All of the artists involved waived all of their fees, including songwriting and royalties, so the proceeds from the album and its companion book will all go to CompassionArt and the 16 international charities it has selected.

“All of the people involved in the project had been talking for the past few years about how it is not enough for us to just do our thing and write songs and that sort of stuff,” Smith says. “We started to see it as our responsibility to be a voice.

“We thought, what would happen if all of us got into a room and started writing songs together, and that’s what happened in January ‘07 in Scotland.”

Smith says getting all the songwriters together was far easier than he expected.

“Now the challenge is sustaining it,” Smith says.

The singer says the measure of success for this project will be a bit different than, “selling loads of records. It would be when we see lives changed on the ground. When we see people that haven’t got water, suddenly have clean water, when we see people that enough food and become part of a sustainable community and have anti-retroviral drugs and malaria meds. That would be an incredible thing to happen from this project. That would be extraordinary.”

Smith will be making CompassionArt the focus of his attention, as Delirious is splitting up after final shows this year, ending in November.

“It’s a sad time, but also happy in looking forward to new opportunities,” Smith says. And CompassionArt is, “The thing we wake up thinking about every morning.”

Our Idol lands a deal: American Idol season six artist Phil Stacey, who has been writing the American Idol blog for LexGo.com, has landed a recording deal with Provident/Reunion Records. Stacey was born in Richmond and was raised in Fairfield, Ohio. He released his first album on Lyric Street Records in 2008. He is now working with producer Brown Bannister on his Provident debut, which is slated for late Summer 2009 release.

Sara Groves' Christmas album in "O Holy Night." Photo courtesy of INO Records.

Why do recording artists make new Christmas albums?

Seriously, three-quarters of them are usually full of songs that have been recorded a quarter-of-a-million times already, and the rest are attempts at new seasonal tunes that are in reality what is known as filler.

So, what does a current recording artist bring to the table that’s any better than what Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby did decades ago?

Well, first off, like the rest of us, pop stars like to sing Christmas songs. So, if you can put your own twist on O Holy Night, and your fans will probably buy it, why not?

Casting Crowns' singer Mark Hall. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

And new tunes sometimes take root, which comes to mind listening to Casting Crowns’ take on Wayne Kirkpatrick’s God is with Us. And new artists come with new points of view, be it the classical colors of the Annie Moses Band or Sara Groves’ brand of Americana.

Yes, my eyes do roll when the newest Christmas discs start arriving on my desk, usually somewhere in the middle of August. But there are sounds and songs on albums that will define the year, and I’ll pull them out every year like tinsel.

So here’s a look at the best of 2008’s Christmas packages from the contemporary Christian crowd.

Sara Groves, O Holy Night – Critics’ darling, thy name is Sara Groves, and we will not vary from that here. O Holy Night is a wide ranging Christmas package that starts off sounding like it will be a rootsy exploration of songs about the sacred evening, but slowly begins to fold in other experiences such as To Be with You, a sentimental look at family Christmases, and Toy Packaging, an unsentimental look at that which sends many a parent’s blood pressure soaring at Christmastime. The sonic centerpiece is a Silent Night arrangement that spirals into reverberating electric guitars that create a sublime effect, like a sky filled with shooting stars.

Casting Crowns, Peace on Earth – The unassuming superstars’ Christmas disc succeeds the same way the band succeeds, by being relevant to its audience and thoughtfully made. While You Were Sleeping is a prime example, telling the Christmas story of a town that went down in history as having no room and asking if that’s how America will be remembered. There is an amped-up Joy to the World, giving the DeVevos, guitarist Juan and violinist Melodee, a little room to jam, and a beautiful cover of Wayne Kirkpatrick’s underrated God is with Us, with Megan Garrett delivering a vocal that has Mary Chapin Carpenter-like intimacy.

Mandisa, It’s Christmas – Whether you’re looking for skillful pop-song styling or American Idol-style earnestness, former Idol contestant Mandisa delivers with a classic contemporary Christmas record. Of all the discs in this roundup, ‘Disa’s is probably the best one to spin at your Christmas party.

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