Amy Grant’s Successes Come From the Heart

In regard to the April 21 review of Amy Grant’s “Heart in Motion,” Mike Boehm seems to imply that the album is nothing more than an attempt to achieve mass success.

Amy Grant has been achieving mass success (of sorts) since 1985’s “Unguarded” album. Her first single, “Find a Way,” managed to crack the pop charts and found a lot of airplay on pop radio stations. Her duet with Peter Cetera, “Next Time I Fall,” hit No. 1 on the pop charts and garnered her a Grammy nomination. She was probably the first Christian artist to sell a million copies of an album and set precedents in her field that are still in existence today. Many of my friends who flinch at the term Christian music are big fans of Grant because many of her songs come from the heart. Her music is positive, refreshing, addictive.

As for the song “Ask Me,” the song ends upbeat and facile because the abused victim found Christ, or inner peace, and is managing to go on with her life despite the childhood scars. Here the song is only mirroring what has happened in real life.

Yes, there are “obvious, overproduced bids for success” (Madonna, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, etc. . . . ) but Amy Grant is not among them.

GABRIEL ESPINOSA, Santa Maria