Be Still and Know... Hymns & Faith is the latest Christian Gospel album released by American Christian Gospel singer, songwriter, 6 time Grammy award winner, 22times Dove award winner, Amy Grant. This album was released on April 14, 2015 and released under the label, Amy Grant Productions under license to Sparrow Records.
Album Details::
Album :: Be Still and Know... Hymns & Faith
Artist :: Amy Grant
Release Date :: April 14, 2015
Genre :: Contemporary, Gospel
Label :: Sparrow Records
Location :: Nashville, TN, USA
Album :: Be Still and Know... Hymns & Faith
Artist :: Amy Grant
Release Date :: April 14, 2015
Genre :: Contemporary, Gospel
Label :: Sparrow Records
Location :: Nashville, TN, USA
Biography ::
There’s nothing like life experience to provide a deeper, richer
emotional palette for a songwriter to draw from when crafting new music.
For Amy Grant, it’s been 10 years since her last full studio album and
it’s been a decade marked by soul-shaking milestones. As she’s always
done, Grant has embraced both the triumphs and challenges, distilled
them to their essence and poured the lessons learned into songs that
ache with honesty and reverberate with gentle wisdom.
How Mercy Looks From Here is the soundtrack of a life well-lived. “A
lot of major life changes happened during these past few years.” Grant
says. “So on this record, there’s zero filler. Every song has a real
story behind it.”
In telling those stories, Grant recruited an impressive array of
friends and heroes, including James Taylor, Carole King, Sheryl Crow,
Vince Gill, Eric Paslay, and Will Hoge. Working with producer Marshall
Altman (Natasha Bedingfield, Matt Nathanson), Grant has delivered a
vibrant collection of songs that are entertaining and substantive, and
it wasn’t by accident. Inspired by a conversation with her ailing
mother, Grant approached this album as a woman on a mission.
“A conversation I had with my mother a couple of months before she
died helped set the direction for this record,” says Grant, whose mother
passed away in April 2011. “Mom had a lifelong curiosity that kept her
young at heart even when her mind was failing. One night, when I stopped
by to visit her on my way to my bus to drive to a concert, she was
surprised to discover that I was a singer ‘Oh you sing?’ she asked. I
said, ‘Yes ma’am. I sing,’ She asked, ‘What kind of songs do you sing?’ I
was explaining what I sang to her and she asked if she could get on the
bus and go with me. She was frail and clearly wearing out and I said,
‘Not this time.’ She said, ‘Well if I can’t go, do me a favor. When you
get on stage, sing something that matters.’”
That simple, profound bit of advice took root and became Grant’s
mantra for this new record. “My plan is to dedicate this record to my
mom,” she says. “And that’s how I describe it, it’s not all serious.
It’s not all silly. It’s just things that matter.”
Grant has built a long, successful career on music that matters. Ever
since she burst on the scene as a fresh-faced teenager bringing
contemporary Christian music to the forefront of American culture, the
Nashville native gained a reputation for creating potent songs that
examined life’s complexities with an open heart and keen eye. She became
the first artist in Christian music to have a platinum record and went
on to become a crossover sensation, her musical gifts transcending genre
boundaries to make her a household name. She’s earned six Grammy Awards
and numerous Gospel Music Association Dove Awards as well as three
multi-platinum albums, six platinum albums and four gold albums. She’s
achieved 10 Top 40 pop singles and placed 17 hits on the Top 40 Adult
Contemporary chart as well as scoring numerous hits on the contemporary
Christian charts. A longtime and active Nashville resident, Grant is as
well known for her philanthropy as her music. She and husband, Vince
Gill, are tireless in their efforts to aid worthy causes.
On How Mercy Looks From Here, Grant delivers one of the most powerful
albums of her distinguished career. The project opens with “If I Could
See,” a spirited up tempo number with an engaging melody and uplifting
lyric kicking off the album with a sense of purpose and feeling of
musical adventure. It imparts the feeling that an important journey is
set to begin and Grant then proceeds to take the listener on an eventful
ride.
Some of the tunes burst forth with a sense of anticipation and
optimism while others lean into life most challenging moments. The
tender ballad, “Shovel in Hand,” began as a poem Grant penned after her
son, Matt, lost a close friend when he was only 19. The song chronicles
the emotion a mother feels seeing her child wrestle with tragedy. “His
friend had a car wreck coming back home from college,” recalls Grant.
“He was a sophomore at then University of Alabama and it was Mother’s
Day weekend. It was his 20th birthday.”
“Better Not to Know” also came from the deep well of personal
experience. After her grandmother died in 1988, Grant took her
inheritance money and planted 75 fruit trees on the Tennessee farm where
she was living with her first husband and children. “I went through a
divorce and left the farm,” she says. “Ten years after I had left the
farm, the people that owned the farm called a dear friend of mine and
said, ‘I’m pretty sure Amy planted these fruit trees and they are
covered in fruit.’ There had not been one speck of fruit for years. I
showed up with a ladder and baskets. There were pears, peaches and
apples and it was unbelievable. I was up there eating the fruit and it
was so good. It was the sweetest peach I’d ever had. It was really
emotional at that first harvest. I started thinking, ‘If I had known
twenty years earlier what life would bring, I don’t know that I would
have planted the trees. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
“Don’t Try So Hard” is a tender ballad about resting in God’s grace
that features James Taylor. “I’ve loved his voice forever,” Grant says
with a smile. “A couple of summers ago he invited Vince and me to come
up and be a part of his 4th of July concert. We stayed at their home and
their twins are the same age as our daughter Corrina, so that was
really sweet. After Marshall and I had recorded ‘Don’t Try So Hard,’ I
said, ‘I hear James Taylor on these lines and I’d love to ask him if
he’d sing on this.’ He worked from home and he really spent some time
stylizing it. He sent me a really sweet email afterwards saying that
he’d “spent the last several days with my voice in his head and hoped I
was pleased.”
Grant recruited Carole King to join her on the upbeat “Our Time Is
Now.” “I felt like that lyric applied to both of us, to Carol and
myself. It’s a special song,” Grants says of the tune, which also
features her children’s voices and her father. Among the other guests
vocalists on the album is Nashville-based singer/songwriter Will Hoge.
“I’m such a Will Hoge fan, so having him sing on ‘Shovel In Hand’ was
really special,” she says. “The raw, rough edges of his voice fit the
tone of the song.”
The only outside song on the album is “Deep As It Is Wide,” written
by new country artist Eric Paslay, whose writing credits include Jake
Owens’ “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and the Eli Young Band’s “Even if It
Breaks Your Heart.” Grant invited Paslay and Sheryl Crow to join her on
“Deep As It is Wide,” a gorgeous ballad about the depth and breadth of
God’s amazing love.
Framed by Altman’s skilled production, Grant’s voice has never
sounded more compelling and each song feels like a personal story shared
by a treasured friend. “I feel the most settled in life and creatively I
feel like a kid again,” Grant relates. “I’m watching my children
launch. It’s so exciting to sit back and cheer and it leaves me with a
lot of free time to reinvest now in things that I’ve always loved,
creativity being at the top of the list. If you want to be a healthy
person hang out with healthy people. If you want to enjoy the outdoors,
make friends who enjoy the outdoors because you can feel that
camaraderie and encouragement. Our home environment is so conducive to
creativity. Vince is always in the studio working on something. Jenny
Gill is finishing her first record. Corrina loves to dance and sing. All
of our styles are different, but I love that there is always music
coming from one room or another.”
The songs on How Mercy Looks From Here represent a season of growth,
yet as personal as they are, they are also universal. Everyone can
relate to love, loss and the passing of time. “At some point in life you
realize that some things really matter and some things don’t,” Grants
says. “Living matters. Celebrating life matters. Seeing the value in
hard times matters. Relationships and people matter. Faith matters. I
feel like that’s where my head has been while writing and recording his
project. I feel this is a very positive record. I hope it is life
affirming. Life prepares us for the journey. You don’t know what’s ahead
and that is one of the great things about getting older in a framework
of faith. Faith is the one thing that stands the test of time.”
Track Listing ::
01. Power In the Blood
02.Be Still and Know
03. Jesus, Take All of Me (Just As I Am)
04. Rock of Ages (feat. Vince Gill)
05. Carry You
06. This Is My Father's World
07. El Shaddai
08. Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
09. It Is Well With My Soul/The River's Gonna Keep On Rolling (Medley)
10. My Jesus, I Love Thee
11. Deep As It Is Wide (feat. Eric Paslay & Sheryl Crow)
12. What a Friend We Have In Jesus/Old Rugged Cross/How Great Thou Art (Medley)
13. 'Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus
14. Softly and Tenderly
15. Holy, Holy, Holy
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PLEASE DO COMMENT IF YOU LIKE THE POST
Excellent blog with Wonderful Faith-building songs.
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awesome. God bless you
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